Neil Jordan's last flirtation with vampires was 1994's mega-hit Interview With A Vampire, a glitzy, operatic costume romp sprinkled with homoeroticism. With Byzantium, the glitz has been replaced with end-of- pier grime, the opera is of the soap variety, and the love is of the maternal kind.
Gemma Arterton plays Clara, a nineteenth century prostitute given the chance for immortality. In exchange she must become a sort of vampire - except not the kind that is scared of sunlight, garlic, or crosses. The only thing she's scared of is losing her daughter, Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan). Clara and Eleanor are being pursued across the centuries by a mysterious benefactor, or possibly nemesis, named Darvell (Sam Riley). There's plenty of blood, and even more wailing anguish and heartbreak.
I wanted to like Byzantium, but it never really achieves any dramatic purchase. The film is structured so that the ladies' modern existence is juxtaposed against their origin story, eliding everything in between. This results in the viewer having little sense of the 200-year weariness or insight gathered by Clara and Eleanor. Resourceful and resilient, maybe, but the pathos that surely comes from the knowledge of one's perenniality emerges as motherly bitterness and teenage angst respectively. And it doesn't ring true that after developing twenty decades of survival skills they should founder under such tawdry circumstances.
The script is written by Moira Buffini, based on her play, A Vampire Story. While the film is undeniably cinematic, the dialogue is frequently clunky, with the male performers, including Johnny Lee Miller as the one-dimensional Captain, visibly awkward at times. Caleb Landry Jones's performance is strangest of all, looking about as physically comfortable as James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
Jordan occasionally finds striking images to capture memorable moments. The waterfall of blood - a kind of menstrual torrent cascading over black rocks - looks amazing. And he evocatively finds the Gothic in the creaking architecture of the Byzantium guesthouse itself. The brothel overlooks a crumbling pier, symbol of the ravaging nature of time, and possibly of the fading of men, impotent while the vamps remain insatiable.
More stark imagery and bizarre symbolism, a la Jordan's The Company of Wolves, and less rudimentary skullduggery and fewer screaming domestics, might have rescued Byzantium from blandness. Soon Saoirse Ronan will get a role deserving of her talent - but we'll have to wait a bit longer.
Gemma Arterton plays Clara, a nineteenth century prostitute given the chance for immortality. In exchange she must become a sort of vampire - except not the kind that is scared of sunlight, garlic, or crosses. The only thing she's scared of is losing her daughter, Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan). Clara and Eleanor are being pursued across the centuries by a mysterious benefactor, or possibly nemesis, named Darvell (Sam Riley). There's plenty of blood, and even more wailing anguish and heartbreak.
I wanted to like Byzantium, but it never really achieves any dramatic purchase. The film is structured so that the ladies' modern existence is juxtaposed against their origin story, eliding everything in between. This results in the viewer having little sense of the 200-year weariness or insight gathered by Clara and Eleanor. Resourceful and resilient, maybe, but the pathos that surely comes from the knowledge of one's perenniality emerges as motherly bitterness and teenage angst respectively. And it doesn't ring true that after developing twenty decades of survival skills they should founder under such tawdry circumstances.
The script is written by Moira Buffini, based on her play, A Vampire Story. While the film is undeniably cinematic, the dialogue is frequently clunky, with the male performers, including Johnny Lee Miller as the one-dimensional Captain, visibly awkward at times. Caleb Landry Jones's performance is strangest of all, looking about as physically comfortable as James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
Jordan occasionally finds striking images to capture memorable moments. The waterfall of blood - a kind of menstrual torrent cascading over black rocks - looks amazing. And he evocatively finds the Gothic in the creaking architecture of the Byzantium guesthouse itself. The brothel overlooks a crumbling pier, symbol of the ravaging nature of time, and possibly of the fading of men, impotent while the vamps remain insatiable.
More stark imagery and bizarre symbolism, a la Jordan's The Company of Wolves, and less rudimentary skullduggery and fewer screaming domestics, might have rescued Byzantium from blandness. Soon Saoirse Ronan will get a role deserving of her talent - but we'll have to wait a bit longer.