Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 12, 1994 TAG: 9411170032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The film adaptation of Anne Rice's "Interview With the Vampire" - the movie that made Oprah Winfrey run for the lobby and supposedly consider canceling an interview with star Tom Cruise - is simultaneously nauseating and mind-numbing.
It is so awash in pulsating, dripping, coursing, pooling blood that whatever psychological elements the story possesses are utterly drowned. Part of the problem is with Rice's screenplay.
Her adaptation of her own, very popular novel apparently presumes that moviegoers have read the book: Bring your own understanding and, perhaps, appreciation of the characters, because the screenplay supplies very little.
For starters, there is Louis (Brad Pitt), the dissipated 24-year-old Louisiana landowner who is grieving the loss of his wife and infant daughter. His mournful wandering around the plantation and the seedier streets of New Orleans is interrupted by the arrival of the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) into his life.
Lestat offers to put an end to Louis' emotional anguish - to give him eternal life - and the pathetic Louis agrees. Lestat does his gory thing in the usual, fang-dripping way, then pours his own blood into Louis' mouth to seal the deal.
Louis lacks the necessary stomach for killing actual humans, so he dines on New Orleans rats and lots of fluffy white chickens around the old plantation. You half expect him to rise up from the mire, snapping a chicken leg off with his bloody teeth, and declare, "Tomorrow is another day," so monotonous is this part of the film.
Finally, Louis picks a victim - a child, Claudia (Kristen Dunst), whose mother lies dead beside her. He wants only to feed on her, but Lestat - sensing that Louis is about to leave him - brings Claudia home to give her "the dark gift" and create happy little vampire family.
What is interesting about all of this is exactly nothing. Louis' dilemma is that he is an immortal with the heart of a mortal. He feels too much, as the European vampire Armand (Antonio Banderas) tells him toward the end of the film. But the film provides no understanding of why Louis is different.
Nor does it explain why Lestat turns on the child, Claudia. Cruise does OK with the gleeful, neck-chomping scenes, but when he tries to convey Lestat's deep, dark, tortured soul, he provokes unintended laughs. He just doesn't have the voice or elegance for the job.
Dunst is exceptional as Claudia, but again the script leaves her high and dry, especially in the depiction of her relationship to Louis. Was Louis ambivalent toward his mortal child? Has Lestat used his particular talent of reading minds and souls to discover this in Louis and gain the key for keeping him forever?
Director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game") must have thought if he kept the film moving at a red-hot pace, no one would care about the answers to these questions. But without so much as a glimpse at the answers, "Interview" is just one, unbelievably bloody mess of a movie.
Interview With the Vampire, *1/2 stars
A Geffen Pictures release, showing at Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Cinema 6. Rated R for extraordinary gore and adult themes. 123 mins.
by CNB