Category Archives: Family Issues

Days of whine and neuroses: My Old Lady 1/2 & A Master Builder *

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 20, 2014)

Drunken boor(s): Kevin Kline hams it up in My Old Lady

What am I, a theater critic now? The truthful answer would be “no”, but through some luck of the draw, I find myself reviewing two films rooted in the boards. Quiet in the wings, please. First up is My Old Lady, adapted for the screen by long-time playwright/first-time film director Israel Horovitz from his own original stage production.

As I am wholly ignorant regarding Mr. Horovitz’s oeuvre (save for the film version of his Author! Author!), I may be talking out of school, but the setup in his film feels straight outta Neil Simon, in the vein of The Goodbye Girl or The Odd Couple. Kevin Kline stars as a self-absorbed New Yorker (is that redundant?) who inherits a spacious Parisian apartment from his late father.

It’s a pretty sweet deal, with just two minor drawbacks: 1) A stalwart nonagenarian (Dame Maggie Smith) and her daughter (Kristin Scott Thomas) are already in residence, and 2) An obscure French law that not only forbids the chagrined (and strapped for cash) heir from selling “his” apartment until the old lady kicks…but requires him to pay her a monthly stipend, under penalty of losing ownership.

While the setup promises a lightweight Simonesque romp, the ensuing tonal shift makes for more of a Pinteresque pity party; its punch bowl brimming with lies, bitterness and a Family Secret (which you’ll see coming a mile away).

Still, if you have to be stuck in a dusty old Parisian apartment for 107 minutes with three actors hogging the screen time, you could do worse than Kevin Kline, Dame Maggie Smith, and Kristin Scott Thomas (with a peep from the wonderful Dominique Pinon). I only wish Horovitz had given his formidable trio of stars more interesting things to do and say.

Joy and pane: A Master Builder

Moving now from an overcrowded Parisian apartment to a sprawling mansion, the mood oddly turns more claustrophobic. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that Jonathan Demme’s A Master Builder is derived from an Ibsen play (rarely a romp in the fields).

Wallace Shawn (who adapted the screenplay from a new translation) stars as a well-to-do architect named Solness, the man who designed that mansion, and a good many others in the small (New England?) town he lives in with his long-suffering wife (Julie Hagerty). Long suffering for many reasons; not the least being the fact that her husband is a manipulative asshole (I’m not sure if that’s the literal translation from the original Norwegian, so pardon my French, and my bad English, if it ain’t).

However, this may all soon become moot, because we find the soulless Solness bedridden with some kind of indeterminate (but obviously terminal) illness, being fussed over by his wife, his doctor (Larry Pine) and his bookkeeper/mistress (Emily McDonnell).

Here’s where you need to start paying attention. Solness’ mistress is also the fiancée of his most promising protégé (Jeff Biehl), whom he has nonetheless been keeping down (remember, he’s an asshole), much to the chagrin of the gifted young architect’s sickly father (Andre Gregory), who pleads with his long-time frenemy to promote his son and let him prove his mettle. Solness refuses to comply.

Enter the Free Spirited Other (Lisa Joyce), a vivacious young woman who appears out of the blue on his doorstep (or does she…hmm). All the poisons that lurk in the mud are about to hatch out.

It’s a little bit A Christmas Carol, a little bit Tempest, a little bit All That Jazz (sans dancing), and a whole lot of angst. But again, we must consider the source material (Pop quiz: How many famous Scandinavian comedians can you name, off the top of your head? I rest my case).

Still, the script crackles with seriocomic intelligence, the cast is excellent (the radiant and charismatic Joyce is a particular standout and a great discovery) and it’s a kick to see Shawn reunited (albeit briefly) with his My Dinner With Andre co-star Gregory.

At first, Demme (Melvin and Howard, The Silence of the Lambs, Married to the Mob, Something Wild) seemed to me to be an odd choice for helming such a stagey talk fest, but refreshing myself on his resume, I realize he’s no stranger to filmed stage performance (Stop Making Sense, Swimming to Cambodia, Storefront Hitchcock). His direction here is subtle; at once coolly omniscient and warmly intimate.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Road Movie

Involuntary simplicity: The Discoverers **1/2

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 21, 2014)

Writer-director Justin Schwarz is the love child of Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne. Actually, this is pure speculation, based upon viewing his dramedy, The Discoverers. It’s the oft-told, indie-flavored tale of a quirky, screwed-up family who embark upon an arduous trek, only to discover that all roads eventually lead back to Dysfunction Junction. However, as the rules of this film genre dictate, it’s about the journey, not the destination.

Griffin Dunne stars as Lewis, a man in crisis. In the midst of a divorce and nearly broke, he barely scrapes by as a part-time history teacher at a Chicago community college. The only light on the horizon is that he may have finally found a publisher for his 6,000 page magnum opus about an obscure historical figure named York, a slave who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their trek to the Pacific (his obsession with this decades-long research and writing project has essentially destroyed his marriage). When he is invited to present a paper in Oregon, he decides to make it a “family road trip”, dropping by his estranged wife’s house to scoop up son Jack (Devon Graye) and daughter Zoe (Madeleine Martin).

Soon after they hit the road, they encounter their first detour. Lewis gets a frantic phone call from his smarmy yuppie brother (John C. McGinley), who asks him to check on their parents in Idaho. Lewis is reticent at first, as he has been estranged from his father (Stuart Margolin) for a number of years; but dutifully complies. What he discovers is not good; his mother lying dead on the bathroom floor (from natural causes), and his grief-stricken father, who remains silent and glowering while Lewis tends to the funeral arrangements.

His father only breaks his silence once, to insist that Lewis’ brother read the eulogy at the service (even though Lewis wrote it). After the burial, Lewis’ busy brother simply must dash, dumping their traumatized father into his charge. The next morning, Lewis’ dad pulls a disappearing act, but is located with a group of Lewis and Clark re-enactors off on an annual “Discovery Trek” that recreates the pair’s epic journey. In an attempt to snap his father back to reality, Lewis talks his reluctant teenagers into tagging along, (not an easy sell, as all are required to eschew modern amenities).

If you’re thinking this all sounds like Little Miss Sunshine meets Moonrise Kingdom by way of Nebraska, you would be correct. And as in those aforementioned films, the literal journey undertaken by the protagonists becomes a figurative journey of self-discovery; a mapping out and circumnavigation of roadblocks in their lives that are inevitably attributable to family dysfunction. These are the types of characters that make you wish you could reach through the screen, grab them by their lapels, and let them have it with that classic exhortation from Tootsie…”I BEGGED you to get therapy!”

The film would not have worked as well without Dunne; his penchant for projecting wryness in the face of existential despair (which made him the “go-to” guy in the 80s to play the Hapless Urban Everyman) remains intact. This is also a comeback for the 74 year-old Margolin, most recognizable for his TV role as the sidekick on The Rockford Files. He gives a touching, resonant performance. And Schwarz earns extra points for injecting overly-familiar material with enough freshness and heart to make it quaffable.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Road Movie

Swinging 60-ish: On My Way * & Le Week-End *

September 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 12, 2014)

Grandmere du jour: On My Way

So if you have been staying away from theaters because you’re one of those folks who feels the majority of Hollywood product these days is just big, dumb, loud (in 3-D IMAX) and targeting sub-literate 12 year-olds, I have good news for you. Two (count ’em, two) eminently watchable flicks for grownups. Two films featuring fully fleshed out characters over 60…who are neither senile nor terminally ill (!).

(First up). I think smoking is a disgusting habit. But there’s something about a beautiful French woman puffing on a Gitane that makes it seem…how do you say? SoDamSexy. Consider Catherine Deneuve, who maintains her ageless allure even while taking up a chunk of screen time in Emmanuelle Bercot’s On My Way bumming cigarettes, scrounging for money to buy cigarettes, desperately seeking any place that sells cigarettes, and of course, chain-smoking cigarettes.

Deneuve is Bettie, an ex-beauty queen (Miss Brittany 1969!) turned restaurateur, who has actually been on the cigarette wagon, at the encouragement of her cashier (Claude Gensac) who also happens to be her mom. But Bettie is about to fall off the wagon. She has reluctantly inherited her family-owned eatery, which is operating barely above water.

Living with her overly-protective elderly mom further elevates Bettie’s stress level, and now she hears it through the grapevine that her lover has dumped her for someone else (“Some 25 year-old slut,” her mom informs her, unhelpfully adding, “…a beautician.”). Say…anybody got a smoke?

Suddenly overwhelmed by life in general, Bettie impetuously hops into her car Thelma and Louise-style and hits the road, with (as Chuck Berry once sang) no particular place to go. When she calls one of her employees a day or two later to assure everyone that she hasn’t gone missing, she finds out that her estranged daughter Muriel (Camille) has been desperately trying to reach her. Muriel has had a last-minute shot at an internship in Brussels, but can’t find anyone else available to take her precocious son (Nemo Schiffman, real-life son of the director) to his grandfather’s house in the country.

To the surprise of both her daughter and herself, Bettie agrees to do her the solid (despite the awkwardness of barely knowing her grandson and having never even met her daughter’s father-in-law). And so they are off on their adventures through pastoral provincial France.

While Bercot’s script (co-written with Jerome Tonnerre) doesn’t venture too far from the traditional road movie tropes (unexpected detours, episodic meet-ups with quirky characters, etc.) the film is buoyed by her intelligent direction and the ever-radiant Deneuve’s engaging performance. Cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, The Artist) nicely captures the sun-dappled beauty of central France for a pleasing backdrop.

It’s interesting, I finally got around to seeing Alexander Payne’s Nebraska recently; and I found On My Way to be strikingly similar. Both films examine an aging parent and an adult child coming to grips with an estranged relationship.

Granted, Deneuve’s sixty-something character is relatively “younger” and more sound of mind than Bruce Dern’s dementia-suffering octogenarian, but both of these protagonists need to embark on a meandering road trip before ultimately coming home (both literally and figuratively) to the realization that what they were really looking for was tucked away in the bosom of their family all along…unconditional love.

Just another happy couple: Duncan and Broadbent in Le Week-End

Among the Boomers, who are now finding themselves irrevocably “turning into their parents” and thereby forced to commit previously unthinkable acts (e.g., sheepishly flashing an AARP membership card for a senior discount, or maybe going out for dinner at 4pm) those who are married with children arguably face the most dreaded crossroads of all: The Empty Nest Years.

Personally, I wouldn’t know, being a barren bachelor, but you know…this is what I’ve heard. The kids all have moved away, and now here we are, staring at each other across the table thinking: “So…now what do we do for excitement?”

If taking a young lover or a new sports car is off the table, how about a weekend in Paris? That’s what English couple Meg (Lindsay Duncan) and Nick (Jim Broadbent) are banking on to spice things up for their anniversary. That is the setup for Le Week-End, an uneven yet absorbing effort from Notting Hill director Roger Michell and Sammie and Rosie Get Laid screenwriter Hanif Kureishi.

Meg and Nick, both academics, don’t appear overtly affectionate, but they seem comfortable with…whatever “it” is that they do have (like a well-worn yet cozy pair of slippers you won’t toss). However, once they run into an old colleague (Jeff Goldblum, playing the Ugly American to the hilt) and he invites them to a soiree at his upscale Parisian digs (swarming with French hipsters), the facade crumbles.

The film is marketed as a comedy, but Kureishi’s literate screenplay is darker in tone; closer to Harold Pinter or Edward Albee (at times, Nick and Meg are like a benign George and Martha). Still, Paris is gorgeous, Duncan and Broadbent give great performances, no shots are fired…and there isn’t even one car chase.

Drama, Family Issues, School Days

Winsome wisps of WASP-y whinging: Breathe In **

September 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 5, 2014)

While I am aware that the “suspension of disbelief” is inherent to movie-watching, writer-director Drake Doremus and co-writer Ben York Jones are demanding a healthy amount of it from their audience with Breathe In, a tale of affluent angst set in John Cheever Land, shot in a formal, austere style recalling Robert Redford’s Ordinary People or Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm. First, you have to find 30 year-old Felicity Jones believable as an 18 year-old British exchange student named Sophie. There is certainly no problem for the UK-born actress to sell the “Brit” part…but chronologically, she’s too long in the tooth (like 30 year-old Dustin Hoffman was playing age “21” in The Graduate).

Then again, perhaps there was a method to this casting madness. Because you see, Sophie is one of those Old Souls. Which I’d guess is a device to make it more “believable” (and less creepy?) that she and the American host family’s Dad, Keith (Guy Pearce) experience some kind of instantaneous mutual attraction, telegraphed by an exchange of soulful stolen glances no sooner than Keith and his wife Megan (Amy Ryan) pick Sophie up at the airport to drive her to their upstate New York digs, where she will be sharing a room with the couple’s 18 year-old daughter (Mackenzie Davis). Nothing creepy about it at all.

Keith is a mopey kind of fellow, one of those embittered, frustrated musicians who has pretty much given up his dreams and settled for teaching piano to high school students. “Keith will be your piano teacher at school. He has a hobby with the symphony,” Megan tells Sophie while making small talk during their ride home from the airport. Keith bristles, quietly hissing “It’s not just a hobby”. Keith plays cello, and has been subbing, but is on pins and needles regarding an upcoming audition for an open chair. “Would you give up teaching?” asks Sophie. “Yeah.” Keith answers without hesitation. One beat behind, Megan blurts a “No”. Houston, we have a problem.

Keith seems to be the only brooding artiste in the family. His daughter is an outgoing sort; a high school swim team champ, she’s a bit of a ditz (if likable enough). Likewise Megan, who goes all Martha Stewart over cookie jars. She collects and sells them online. Sophie smiles politely while pretending to be fascinated by an upcoming “cookie jar expo” that Megan is quite jazzed about. But in her heart of hearts, Sophie is an Outsider. Just like Keith, who shuts himself up in his room practicing for his audition and gazing wistfully at old photos of himself in younger days, when he played in a rock ’n’ roll band.

Curiously, Sophie wants to opt out of taking Keith’s piano class. When Keith asks her why, she is evasive, muttering cryptic excuses. Naturally, Keith is intrigued. He insists she has no choice; until she “officially” gets herself taken off the rolls via the school’s requirements, it is mandatory that she come to his class. Reluctantly, she shows up. Keith invites her to “play something” as a way of introducing herself to the the class. After shooting Keith one of those world-weary, “Are you sure this is what you want?” looks, Sophie sits down at the piano, and proceeds to blow the room away Van Cliburn-style, with what she introduces as one of “Chopin’s warm-up pieces” (whatever you’re thinking is going to happen next…you are correct).

Ay, there’s the rub. Unless you are clinically brain-dead, whatever you think is going to happen next in this film, it pretty much does. You’re always one act ahead . The actors are all quite good, and there are some nice touches; as in the way the director cleverly interpolates incidental musical interludes (e.g. Keith’s melancholy cello piece, Sophie’s fiery piano solo) with each character’s emotional turmoil. But there is a glaring lack of motivation for each character’s actions. They are just chess pieces, shuffling around on the thin outline of a narrative that isn’t quite all there. While there seems to have been a noble attempt to construct the story itself like a symphony (I get that) it unfortunately comes off like it’s an unfinished one, at best.

Big Money, Family Issues, Neo-Noir, Up the Workers

The 1% rundown: Child’s Pose ***1/2

September 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 8, 2014)

I’m sure you recall the “affluenza” case in Texas, in which a 16 year-old from a wealthy family received 10 year’s probation and a stint in rehab as “punishment” for killing four people in a drunk driving accident? A psychologist for the defense defined “affluenza” as an affliction unique to children of privilege; claiming that the young man’s coddled upbringing led to an inability to connect actions with consequences.

We have to assume that he said this with a straight face, because judge and jury bought it. Which begs a question: Does the world have two justice systems…one for the rich and one for the poor?

Child’s Pose, a new film from Romanian writer-director Calin Peter Netzer, would seem to reinforce that suspicion. Shooting in a unfussy, Dogme 95-styled manner, and armed with a script (co-written by Razvan Radulescu) that blends droll satire with social realism, Netzer paints a portrait of contemporary Romanian class warfare through the eyes of a haughty bourgeoisie woman named Cornelia (Luminita Gheorghiu).

We are introduced to Cornelia, a middle-aged, well-to-do architect who power-puffs every cigarette like it’s her last, as she is lamenting to her sister (Natasa Raab) about her relationship with her adult son, Barbu (Bogdan Dumitrache). Why does she always have to initiate contact? He hasn’t phoned her for weeks…it must be that controlling wife of his (“That creature…she’s got him by his tail, like a little mouse.”). “Stop pestering him,” her sister says. It quickly becomes apparent that Cornelia is the one who has control issues.

Cornelia’s need to know every detail of Barbu’s life seems to go above and beyond the normal parental concerns. In a particularly telling scene, she invites her housekeeper (who she has hired to regularly clean her son’s home as well) to take a break and join her for a cup of coffee.

Cornelia masterfully turns the chit-chat into an intelligence-gathering session. How is their place…”messy as usual”? When she dusted Barbu’s nightstand, did she happen to notice which book was there? Is it the one she recently sent, she wonders? Cornelia casually offers the maid a 200 Euro pair of shoes she found whilst cleaning out her closet; a payoff, disguised as an act of noblesse oblige.

One evening, Cornelia is attending an opera recital when she is suddenly torn away by her sister, who has bad news. Barbu is down at the police station; he has been involved in a car accident. He’s okay, but he has struck and killed a teenage boy. The look on Cornelia’s face speaks volumes. There’s none of the expected shock, or sense of panic. Rather, you can see all the gears turning.

This is it. This is her “in”. Barbu is in trouble. Big trouble. But mama can help. Mama has her connections. She knows what to kiss, and when. She knows how the system works. She’s already formulating an action plan…not necessarily out of a maternal drive to “save” her son from jail, but to get him back under her thumb, where he belongs (Gheorghiu telegraphs all of this beautifully, wordlessly).

As you watch Cornelia serpentine her way though Bucharest like a preying viper, playing the cops, witnesses, and the victim’s working-class family like violins, it almost becomes a moot point that her spoiled, ne’er do well son is guilty as hell of negligent homicide.

That’s because you’re so gob smacked by Cornelia’s gumption that you develop a morbid fascination with whether or not she is actually going to pull all this off. Of course, there would have to be some enabling factors involving the inherent corruption within “The System” as well, and Netzer doesn’t spare any barbs there either.

While some viewers may be put off by the deliberate pacing (I’ll confess it took me about 20 minutes to get in tune with what the film was even going to be about) those with patience will be rewarded. Gheorghiu’s performance is the most compelling reason to stick with it; she’s the most conniving, insufferably narcissistic maternal nightmare you’ll love to hate this side of Livia Drusilla .

It would be easy to say that the film’s message is “money talks, justice walks”, but the ambiguous denouement gives me pause. It seems that no victory that’s bought and paid for comes without a hidden cost. I’m not a religious man (had to look this up on Mr. Google) but how does that quote go…“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul”? Erm, amen to that.

Dramedy, Family Issues

SIFF 2014: Family United **1/2

September 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2014)

The lovely Spanish countryside provides an eye-pleasing backdrop for director Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s audience-pleasing romp. Not that there’s anything wrong with an audience-pleasing romp (I’m not one of those kind of film snobs…am I?). This lively (if somewhat predictable) family dramedy centers on a wedding. The groom is the youngest of five brothers, who have reunited for the event at their father’s country estate (the parents are estranged). Something unexpected happens, postponing the vows. Further complications arise, leading to an acute case of nuptials interruptus. It’s a slight but likable enough mash-up of romantic comedy and telenovela, with a nifty soundtrack.

Drama, Family Issues, Journalism

SIFF 2014: 1,000 Times Goodnight ***

September 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2014)

Juliette Binoche is magnificent (as she always is) as a fearless photojournalist torn between her addiction to the adrenaline-pumping unpredictability of her work and the grounding reassurance of home life with her family. After she’s nearly blown to bits while embedded in Afghanistan with a group of female suicide bombers, her husband (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and daughters give her an ultimatum. Erik Poppe’s film is a compassionate, sensitively-acted melodrama in the tradition of Shoot the Moon.

Drama, Family Issues, Up the Workers

SIFF 2014: Bad Hair **1/2

September 20, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

This naturalistic drama from Venezuelan writer-director Mariana Rondon concerns a 9 year-old named Junior (Samuel Lange Zambrano) who lives in the rough-and-tumble tower blocks of Caracas with his mother Marta (Samantha Castillo) and baby brother. Impoverished and recently widowed, Marta scrapes out a meager living cleaning rich people’s homes. She desperately wants her old job back as a security guard, but her sleazebag ex-supervisor will help her get reinstated only if she agrees to sleep with him. Adding to her stress, Junior is becoming obsessed with his hair; he wants it straightened, to emulate his favorite pop singer. Most worrisome to Marta, he’s showing an “unmanly” interest in singing and dancing. The increasing tension between mother and son is about to boil over. Using equal parts character study and kitchen sink drama, Rondon metes out subtle social commentary about slum life, class struggle and machismo in Latin culture.

Animated, Family Issues, Fantasy, Troubled Teens

Quick take: A Letter to Momo **

September 17, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 6, 2014)

Here’s something you don’t see every day…a family-friendly anime fantasy from Japan that isn’t produced by Studio Ghibli. That being said, Hiroyuki Okiyura’s film plays a bit like a medley of Studio Ghibli’s greatest hits; sort of a “Stars on 45” conundrum (sure sounds like the real thing, yet makes you yearn to hear the original).

It’s a simple tale about a teenage girl named Momo who moves to an isolated island village with her widowed mother. Insular and slow to make new friends, Momo spends her time daydreaming and flipping through a box full of strange, antique picture books (“From the Edo era,” her great aunt tells her after offering to let her to peruse the collection at her leisure). Well, I needn’t tell you what happens once you start flipping through strange antique picture books from the Edo era…next thing you know, you’ve got a trio of goblins in your attic. They’re creepy, but they’re kooky. More significantly, they may give Momo closure on an unresolved issue regarding her late father.

The hand-drawn animation is lovely, but the story meanders and the mood vacillates too frequently between family melodrama and silly slapstick to sustain any kind of consistent tone. Still, there are some touching moments; and younger kids might be more forgiving.

Family Issues, Fantasy, Horror

Vampire weekend: Byzantium **

September 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 13, 2013)

Stop! Or my Mom will bite: Arterton and Ronan share quality time.

In my 2010 review of The Wolfman, I pondered why people continue to be so fascinated by human “monster” characters like vampires and werewolves in literature and film:

I suppose it’s something to do with those primal impulses that we all (well, most of us-thank the Goddess) keep safely locked in our lizard brain. Both of these “monsters” are predatory in nature, but with some significant differences. With vampires, it’s the psycho-sexual subtext; always on the hunt for someone to penetrate with those (Canines? Molars? I’m not a dentist). There is a certain amount of seduction (or foreplay, if you will) involved as well. But once consummated, it’s off to the next victim (no rest for the anemic).

And there’s certainly no rest for world-weary single vampire mom Clara (Gemma Arterton) and her teenage vampire daughter Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan). In fact, both women at the center of Neil Jordan’s neo-gothic fantasy Byzantium are looking pretty bone-tired. You would too, if you were 200+ years old.

Having to pack up and move to a new town every few months can also be quite draining; Clara’s “job” as a streetwalker, while providing a handy conduit to lure her victims, is not the ideal career choice for anyone to wants to keep a low profile. Also not helping is Mom’s unreserved tendency to leave Grand Guignol crime scenes in her wake for the local constabulary to contemplate. In stark contrast, the more demure and contemplative Eleanor employs a relatively compassionate feeding method (be advised that it’s no less unpleasant to watch).

Eleanor’s sensitivity hints at a poetic soul; telegraphed from the opening scene where a discarded page from her private journal flutters from a high window and is picked up and read by a passing stranger. Eleanor’s wistful voice over assures us that she knows that we know that she realizes the havoc she and her mother have been wreaking for two centuries is evil and wrong. She yearns to tell someone her story; she’s a serial killer that wants to get caught.

Mother and daughter settle in to a new coastal town (the windswept Hastings locale lends itself well to the sense of melancholy and foreboding). Clara, ever the opportunist, finds a pushover-a lonely, kindly bachelor named Noel (Daniel Mays) who has inherited a run-down hotel called The Byzantium. Clara soon converts the vintage inn into a brothel (giving unsuspecting Noel a stay of execution). In the meantime, Eleanor’s ever growing compulsion to share her dark family secrets comes to the fore when she meets a young man (Caleb Landry Jones) and begins to fall in love.

The director, best-known for character-driven noirs (Angel, Mona Lisa, The Crying Game) and emotionally shattering dramas (The Butcher Boy, The End of the Affair) is actually no stranger to the supernatural, beginning with his 1984 sophomore effort (and one of my Jordan favorites) The Company of Wolves. He graduated from werewolves to vampires a decade later with one of his bigger box office successes, Interview with the Vampire (although critics were more divided). He even gave horror comedy a shot in his uncharacteristically limp 1988 offering High Spirits. And his 2009 drama Ondine weaved in a few elements from Irish fairy tales.

Even discounting the fact that I am not particularly enamored with post-modern vampire flicks to begin with, Byzantium still left me feeling ambivalent. On the plus side, Jordan wrests compelling performances from his cast (consistently one of this strongest suits). Arterton exudes a volatile intensity and earthy sexiness that’s hard to ignore, and Ronan’s offbeat moon-faced loveliness and expressive, incandescent eyes give her tragic character an appropriately haunted, ethereal quality.

The problem, I think may be with Moira Buffini’s uneven script (adapted from her own play). While it remained focused on the mother-daughter dynamic, it held my attention. But whenever it veered into the somewhat incoherent backstory involving a cabal of male vampires who have been shadowing the women since the early 19^th Century, they lost me. Then there’s the raging river o’ blood sequence (c’mon…how many times must we rip off The Shining?!) and the Bat Cave of Destiny (my name for it)…at any rate, it all becomes needlessly busy and muddled. Maybe I’m ol’skool, but just give me Bela Lugosi in a chintz cape, and I’ll bite.