Review by Dan Jardine

Vampire legends have been with us for centuries, but the undead have found recent popularity with young people due partly to the feelings of dread and ontological insecurity that both groups appear to share. Both ask, “What is this world we live in, and why don’t I have a place in it?”

For Neil Jordan, who is one of our best contemporary filmmakers, the challenge of transferring Ann Rice’s novel – essentially a dramatic monologue – to the screen was great. While he has produced a gorgeous, sensual and moody film, even Jordan wasn’t able to make a completely satisfying go of it.

Interview with the Vampire begins in antebellum New Orleans, then proceeds through more than three centuries of vampire lore and a couple of continents until we end up in modern day San Francisco. Thus made even more explicit is the tale's paralleling of vampires and homosexuals; indeed, both are presented as sensitive and lonely outcasts. Louis (Brad Pitt), a Creole plantation owner with no reason to live after his wife has died, is susceptible to the advances of the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise), who is looking for a companion to alleviate his sense of loneliness. While Lestat attempts to tutor Louis in the ways of the vampire, Louis is unable to embrace life as one of the undead. Their tempestuous relationship provides what little action there is in the first half of the film. At its halfway point, action shifts to Europe, where the story detours into some visually stunning set pieces (the Parisian Theatre des Vampyres and their subterranean vampire lair, with its honeycomb of resting-places) that are strangely sanguine and tedious.

Philippe Rousselot's gorgeous cinematography captures production designer Dante Ferretti's stunning sets, costume designs and makeup despite what must have been difficult conditions (filming almost exclusively at night). Rounding it off and creating a pungent atmosphere is Elliot Goldenthal's steamy and gloomy score.

Indeed, the film is all mood, but little drama. Certainly, vampires-as-protagonist is a difficult proposition, particularly these invulnerable vampires. While the idea is intriguing — if you never die, do you ever really live? — it does not lend itself well to conventional drama onscreen.

Furthermore, neither Pitt, whose languid New Age goth Louis gives us two hours of passive pouting and monotonously metronome-like voice-over narration, nor Tom Cruise, whose best work is done in the comic scenes (after being incinerated in a fire and dumped in a swamp to be eaten by crocs, Lestat tells his attacker, "You've been a naughty little girl"), but lacks the tragedy-tinged hedonism that the part demands, are completely right for the parts. Pitt and Cruise are unable to convincingly convey their relationship’s intensity and homo-eroticism.

The one performance that does work is that of Kirsten Dunst, whose unleashed mania as Claudia offers a child-like (but not childish) enthusiasm for the task. Her character’s growth from enfant terrible to enfant grotesque is one of the film’s unifying forces, and far more compelling than Pitt’s pathos-ridden performance as the weak-kneed Louis.