Interview with the Vampire Rewatch Reaction
Sun, Feb. 13th, 2022 02:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiraliciousInterview with the Vampire will always be one of those movies I have complicated relationship with. It and the book it's based on were extremely important to preteen me and I rewatch the movie every other year or so, sometimes more often. I have also re-read the book several times. Every time I do, they hit different, depending on my mood and age, I guess. Normally, I do this around Halloween as the movie is easiest to find then, but I did this rewatch after hearing about Anne Rice's passing. I took notes at the time and it has taken me until now to flesh them out. I tried to be vague, but I think some spoilers slipped in.
I will always find Tom Cruise's casting as Lestat weird, but this time around I can't find any specific complaints with his performance and there are a couple scenes where it actually works. Granted, those scenes have always worked. I guess the problem isn't that his performance doesn't work, it's just flat, more than it works? I hope that makes sense.
The truncated Armand & Paris storyline will always be jarring. I get why for the sake of movie plot and runtime, it has to be truncated the way it is, but when you step back to think about it for a second, the whole thing goes too fast to make sense. For those who haven't read the book, the movie takes two storylines that overall take months of time (possibly years on the Louis and Armand traveling together part, I don't quite remember) in the book, smooshes them together into one storyline (that part is fine, they are connected) and make them take about three days. The only way I could think to fix that though, would be to give Louis yet another voice over monologue and he's already at his limit.
I always forget how uneven Brad Pitt's acting is in this movie. In contrast to Tom Cruise as Lestat, Brad Pitt is on point as Louis most of the time, but when he's not, instead of just being a flat kind of “eh” performance, it's laughably jarring. Thankfully, it's only a few moments, but this time around I actually laughed outloud, had to pause the movie, and take a minute to get back into it.
My feelings about Kristen Dunce will always be complicated. I think she is excellent in this, especially considering her age and the character, but in high school, I had a friend who supposedly knew her in person and told me just horrible things about her. I have no idea if those stories are true and the older I get, the more I feel like all of those stories were false and my feelings about Kristen Dunce softens and I feel bad about just blindly believing my friend, but unfortunately, those old feelings will always taint things at least a little.
This is probably the first watching where the scene with Louis discovering Lestat hiding and unable to cope with the modern world hit an emotional cord for me. I don't know what was different for me this time, but normally, it's a throwaway scene for me. This time though I really felt for Lestat and his inability to cope AND Louis' complicated feelings at seeing Lestat like that, but still having the strength to move on and not take on Lestat as his responsibility. (That's not exactly what I wanted to say, but I am having trouble finding the words to sum up Louis' part of that scene.) They both resonated with me and I think that is just a difference in life experience between when I watched it last and now.
I still think its an excellent adaptation. That's not a judgment if the movie is a good movie or if the book is a good book. It's just a statement on how well the book was translated into movie format. My feelings about Anne Rice aside, I think the success of the adaptation is purely to do with her writing the adaptation and her passion for the project. Between when I did the rewatch I am writing this reaction to and now, I did read an article about her writing the adaptation, so that's about all I can say without this turning into a reaction to that article.
The movie also wierdly holds up. Every time I watch, I keep expecting it to feel dated and it just doesn't, at least not for me. The effects hold up and the modern era bits don't distractedly scream the time they were made. The historical parts – which are most of the movie – feel genuine and not like an awkward dated interpretation at the time.
I'm in love with the costuming. I have always been in love with the costuming. I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on the accuracy of the costuming, nor do I care, because it's not glaringly inaccurate, if it is. I want a good chunk of Louis' & Lestat's wardrobes and pieces adapted/inspired by them.
Part of me sincerely hopes no one ever remakes this movie. Not because it's perfect or anything, but because it doesn't need it. It's not dated cringe and it's not inaccessible for modern audiences. And I fear the tendency of modern storytelling when they over explain things that don't need explained and/or add unnecessary flashbacks that don't add to the plot. My brain just kept adding in, “You know, if they made this movie today, they would add blank to this scene here.” It would just ruin the movie, in my personal opinion.
I will always find Tom Cruise's casting as Lestat weird, but this time around I can't find any specific complaints with his performance and there are a couple scenes where it actually works. Granted, those scenes have always worked. I guess the problem isn't that his performance doesn't work, it's just flat, more than it works? I hope that makes sense.
The truncated Armand & Paris storyline will always be jarring. I get why for the sake of movie plot and runtime, it has to be truncated the way it is, but when you step back to think about it for a second, the whole thing goes too fast to make sense. For those who haven't read the book, the movie takes two storylines that overall take months of time (possibly years on the Louis and Armand traveling together part, I don't quite remember) in the book, smooshes them together into one storyline (that part is fine, they are connected) and make them take about three days. The only way I could think to fix that though, would be to give Louis yet another voice over monologue and he's already at his limit.
I always forget how uneven Brad Pitt's acting is in this movie. In contrast to Tom Cruise as Lestat, Brad Pitt is on point as Louis most of the time, but when he's not, instead of just being a flat kind of “eh” performance, it's laughably jarring. Thankfully, it's only a few moments, but this time around I actually laughed outloud, had to pause the movie, and take a minute to get back into it.
My feelings about Kristen Dunce will always be complicated. I think she is excellent in this, especially considering her age and the character, but in high school, I had a friend who supposedly knew her in person and told me just horrible things about her. I have no idea if those stories are true and the older I get, the more I feel like all of those stories were false and my feelings about Kristen Dunce softens and I feel bad about just blindly believing my friend, but unfortunately, those old feelings will always taint things at least a little.
This is probably the first watching where the scene with Louis discovering Lestat hiding and unable to cope with the modern world hit an emotional cord for me. I don't know what was different for me this time, but normally, it's a throwaway scene for me. This time though I really felt for Lestat and his inability to cope AND Louis' complicated feelings at seeing Lestat like that, but still having the strength to move on and not take on Lestat as his responsibility. (That's not exactly what I wanted to say, but I am having trouble finding the words to sum up Louis' part of that scene.) They both resonated with me and I think that is just a difference in life experience between when I watched it last and now.
I still think its an excellent adaptation. That's not a judgment if the movie is a good movie or if the book is a good book. It's just a statement on how well the book was translated into movie format. My feelings about Anne Rice aside, I think the success of the adaptation is purely to do with her writing the adaptation and her passion for the project. Between when I did the rewatch I am writing this reaction to and now, I did read an article about her writing the adaptation, so that's about all I can say without this turning into a reaction to that article.
The movie also wierdly holds up. Every time I watch, I keep expecting it to feel dated and it just doesn't, at least not for me. The effects hold up and the modern era bits don't distractedly scream the time they were made. The historical parts – which are most of the movie – feel genuine and not like an awkward dated interpretation at the time.
I'm in love with the costuming. I have always been in love with the costuming. I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on the accuracy of the costuming, nor do I care, because it's not glaringly inaccurate, if it is. I want a good chunk of Louis' & Lestat's wardrobes and pieces adapted/inspired by them.
Part of me sincerely hopes no one ever remakes this movie. Not because it's perfect or anything, but because it doesn't need it. It's not dated cringe and it's not inaccessible for modern audiences. And I fear the tendency of modern storytelling when they over explain things that don't need explained and/or add unnecessary flashbacks that don't add to the plot. My brain just kept adding in, “You know, if they made this movie today, they would add blank to this scene here.” It would just ruin the movie, in my personal opinion.
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Date: 2022-02-14 12:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-17 07:35 am (UTC)