Film Review: Byzantium

I'd been wanting to see Byzantium for a while. It's a vampire movie directed by Neil Jordan who had previously directed Interview with the Vampire, but it's set in a faded seaside town with a couple of female vampires in the lead played by Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan.

It's quite a lot like Interview with the Vampire in some ways - contemporary, unglamourous setting with flashbacks to the past. But that doesn't mean it's a copy. It's a very different story.

I liked it a great deal. Arterton is great at playing the brassy hooker/vampire without going over the top and Ronan plays the awkward schoolgirl well. The contemporary setting works well for a vampire story, with the flashbacks stopping the visuals from feeling too monotonous.

It's showing on Lovefilm and I think Netflix, so well worth a look.