Byzantium is director Neil Jordan’s second foray into bloodsucker territory, after his 1994 adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, and though not nearly as pricey as that blockbuster, it is both fascinating and classy, a vampire flick more for adults than Millennials, this despite all the prostitution and lap dancing and the sight of a man getting his head sliced clean off.
Instead of being based on a book, it’s based on a play, by one Moira Buffini, who herself adapted her story of a British mother (Gemma Arterton)/daughter (Saoirse Ronan) vampire duo who have survived for two hundred years while on the run, the mother by working as a hooker and draining her clients, the daughter by performing mercy killings on the sick and elderly.
By classy I mean there’s a certain lack of melodrama and, aside from the aforementioned scene of head slicing, less gore than one might imagine, which one definitely does not need buckets of to tell a vampire story. As well Jordan paces the film perfectly—no indecipherable shock cuts here—and shows us some beautiful and startling imagery, like a waterfall turning red with blood.
Jordan also establishes Arterton’s and Ronan’s backstory, intercutting the present-day action with their 1800s life, which was hindered by one military man (Jonny Lee Miller) and helped by another (Sam Riley). This helps immeasurably in generating sympathy for the women, in particular Arterton and both her character’s mindset and her unenviable means of acquiring money.
Speaking of which, Arterton (Unfinished Song) makes for an interesting vampire, beautiful but also childish and impulsive in her behavior as she tries to make up for giving up Ronan as a baby to an orphanage. This includes attempting to give Ronan something resembling a home by moving in with a lonely-guy client (Daniel Mays) into the titular hotel he inherited from his mother.
Ronan (City of Ember) is excellent as the soul of the film, a kind girl/woman unable to tell anyone of her unusual situation (her role reminded me a little of the Swedish vampire flick Let the Right One In). So she writes about it in elegant-sounding letters we hear her narrate, and in stories read by a boy (Caleb Landry Jones) she meets. Apparently for her, life as a vampire, well, sucks. – [DVD]
Drama/Fantasy/Horror
Rated R
DVD Release Date: 10/29/13
