Byzantium - Movie Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Nearly 20 years after Interview With the Vampire, Neil Jordan returns to the genre to breath some new life into a mythology that has grown stale, predictable and rather mopey (see Twilight). With a lively script by Buffini, Jordan creates a lushly stylish dramatic thriller that continually takes us aback with off-beat storytelling and complex characters who don't always do what we expect them to.

The story centres on mother-daughter immortals Clara and Eleanor (Arterton and Ronan), who are on the run when they arrive in a fading British seaside town. The resourceful Clara seduces the nervous Noel (Mays) so they can stay in his dilapidated Byzantium guesthouse. To earn some cash, the always resourceful Clara turns the empty rooms into a brothel. Meanwhile, Eleanor befriends the fragile young Frank (Jones) and reveals the fact that she and her mother are actually more than 200 years old and need human blood to survive. Through all of this, they're being chased by two elder vampires, the ruthless Ruthven (Miller) and the more sympathetic Darvell (Riley), both of whom share a tangled romantic past with Clara.

Unusually intelligent, the film holds our interest with an astonishing series of twists and turns plus an array of colourful characters that play on stereotypes. Holding it all together is a fairly simple plot that reveals itself in bits and pieces until the full picture comes into focus. From this point, we pretty much know what has to happen in the big finale, but watching events unfold is satisfying and sometimes both thrilling and moving.

The cast is excellent, with Ronan once again creating a remarkably sympathetic hero. Arterton cuts loose as the wild-child Clara, clearly having a lot of fun as she develops strong chemistry with Ronan. Jordan invests the film with a wonderfully gothic sensibility that sometimes feels a little overwrought, but even the most outrageous events have ramifications that lock us in our seats. And underneath the lurid, sometimes violent surface are delicate themes that haunt us long after the lights come up.

Rich Cline

Facts and Figures

Year: 2012

Genre: Thriller

Run time: 118 mins

In Theaters: Friday 31st May 2013

Box Office USA: $84.3k

Box Office Worldwide: $85.3 thousand

Budget: $8M

Distributed by: IFC Films

Production compaines: WestEnd Films, Demarest Films, Lipsync Productions, Number 9 Films, Parallel Film Productions, Irish Film Board

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 3.5 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 63%
Fresh: 65 Rotten: 39

IMDB: 6.5 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Neil Jordan

Producer: Sam Englebardt, William D. Johnson, Elizabeth Karlsen, Alan Moloney, Stephen Woolley

Screenwriter: Moira Buffini

Starring: Saoirse Ronan as Eleanor Webb, Gemma Arterton as Clara Webb, Sam Riley as Darvell, Caleb Landry Jones as Frank, Daniel Mays as Noel, Warren Brown as Gareth, Thure Lindhardt as Werner, Barry Cassin as Robert Fowlds, David Heap as Lap Dancing Client, Ruby Snape as Wendy, Jenny Kavanagh as Barmaid, Glenn Doherty as Steve, Edyta Budnik as Nadia, Gabriela Marcinkova as Anya, Uri Gavriel as Savella, Christine Marzano as Mrs. Strange, Kate Ashfield as Gabi, Jeff Mash as Mark, Maria Doyle Kennedy as Morag

Also starring: Jonny Lee Miller, Tom Hollander, Elizabeth Karlsen, Alan Moloney, Stephen Woolley