A SLIPPING DOWN LIFE

[ 1/2] (One and one-half stars)

Small-town blues. Running time: 111 minutes. Rated R (language including sexual references). At the Angelika, Houston and Mercer streets.

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INCREDIBLY, “A Slipping Down Life” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival five years ago and the filmmaker has been looking for a distributor ever since.

Let’s hope no moviegoers have been holding their breath, as this inert little drama falls short of the whimsical character study suggested by its evocative title.

Taking offbeat romance to a whole new level, “Slipping,” adapted by first-time writer-director Toni Kalem from Anne Tyler’s 1969 novel, traces the strange and utterly implausible relationship between a mousy, small-town Southern woman and a surly, self-obsessed rocker.

The role of Evie Decker seems tailor-made for the delightfully quirky Lili Taylor, and the actress is so good, she makes sense of a character who, at times, seems to border on psychotic.

The timid, unhappy Evie is drawn out of her shell after hearing struggling roadhouse musician Drumstrings Casey (a hunky Guy Pearce doing his best with a sketch of a character).

She believes the gibberish he interrupts his songs with is a code that speaks directly to her and, at one of his gigs, she impetuously carves his name (the shorter last name) into her forehead with a shard of broken glass.

Drumstrings is intrigued by her, and his manager enlists Evie and her confronting forehead scar to turn up at his shows as a publicity gimmick.

At first, the pretentiously named Drumstrings believes Evie brings him luck, but all of a sudden she starts asserting herself and threatening their tenuous connection.

Director Kalem has a shaky hand on the tiller, and it’s in keeping with the erratic tone that Evie’s act of self-mutilation is treated with incongruous bursts of humor.

Kalem’s grasp of dramatic storytelling is no firmer, and the disorderly film merely chases its tail for the second half, going nowhere fast.