Film
Summer Courtyard Cinema Club: Interview with the Vampire
- Director
- Neil Jordan
- Certificate
- 18
- Running Time
- 122 mins
San Francisco, 1994. Hard-bitten hack Malloy (Christian Slater) has finally persuaded pasty-faced vampire Louis (Brad Pitt) to tell his tale, beginning with his induction into the legions of the undead 200 years earlier by lonesome bisexual bloodsucker Lestat (Tom Cruise). With the subsequent recruitment of 12-year-old orphan Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), they formed the ultimate dysfunctional family. While this is nominally the tale of Louis, he remains the film’s least interesting character as a result of having to shoulder its entire burden of mortal guilt. Consequently, poor old Brad Pitt is obliged to play the part like an ‘80s goth who’s just been told the Sisters of Mercy have split up. But Cruise carries off the role of Lestat quite magnificently, camping up the period amoral aristo like a toothier incarnation of John Malkovich’s Valmont. But the real surprise is Dunst, who is entirely convincing as the film’s most complex and intriguing character, despite an unsettling resemblance to a pre-teen Nicole Kidman (work that out for yourselves, armchair psychologists). You’d be hard pushed to fault Neil Jordan’s direction, especially in the breathtaking Theatre des Vampires sequences with Antonio Banderas; Philippe Rousselot’s photography is every bit as sumptuous as we’ve come to expect; and the gore and special effects are kept in check throughout, to considerable dramatic benefit.
Go here for more information about this screening, which is part of The Lanes’ Summer Courtyard Cinema Club held, as the name suggests, in their sunny courtyard.
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