Review of Byzantium (2013) by Hoops2448 — 02 Sep 2013

If at first you think the story Byzantium tries to tell is a little too thin, it's because it is and Director Neil Jordan tries everything in his arsenal to slow things down but that just makes this unoriginal picture boring as well.

When mysterious women Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saorise Ronan) move to a quiet coastal town they bring with them death and destruction as a shrouded in darkness group hunts them for something Clara did years prior.

Jordan who previously worked on vampire tale Interview with the Vampire takes a different approach with this story of the blood sucking creatures as it flits from present to past to tell the simplistic and oftentimes pretentious story of these two women.

In fact the film spends so much time swapping time periods that the film never builds any momentum and the glimpses into their pasts get less interesting as the film goes on. Byzantium however is more interested in telling a simple story well, an admirable idea but in doing so fail to grip its audience, Jordan does create an interesting world but its one so bleak and miserable that the ending which should real as hopeful is just bizarre.

Ronan and Arterton who are stuck with an uninventive script make the most of it and Arterton especially stands out as she makes Clara a tragic yet brutal vixen, a born manipulator whose a real joy to watch when she really gets going, something this film rarely shows, Ronan who is consistently good in everything it seems is memorable as the shy, afraid of her own shadow Eleanor yet the two together lack the kind of chemistry expected meaning a key aspect of the film is missing It's a depressing film with a long arduous run time that did not keep me interested because of its insistence to tell what was ultimately a generic vampire story.