Once again, I found HBO Max had a movie leaving soon, one I more or less knew a little about by reputation that I didn’t know was there. What I knew about the movie itself was it was something of a love triangle between French actress Catherine Deneuve, British singer/actor David Bowie, and American actress Susan Sarandon. It’s a very artsy sort of movie, lots of impressionistic shots and the like…and it was directed by Tony Scott?!? The man who is best known for more crowd-pleasing flicks like Top Gun, True Romance, and Days of Thunder? Ridley’s kid brother? Really?
OK, I did not see that coming, so how was the rest of the movie?
Miriam Blaylock (Deneuve) and her companion John (Bowie) are vampires posing as husband and wife music enthusiasts. Or, at least, Miriam is. She’s immortal and unaging. John, well, he’s only the former, and after 200 years as Miriam’s lover, he’s started to age very rapidly in a short amount of time. No amount of blood seems to be able to reverse that process, so he turns to science. Researcher Sarah Roberts (Sarandon) has been doing some work in rapid aging, and he thinks she might be able to help him. That more or less puts her in Miriam’s sights, particularly when a desperate John murders the teenage girl Miriam was already grooming to be John’s replacement. See, John may be aging, but he won’t die, and MIriam has a lot of former lovers locked up in coffins in her attic, going back to her time in ancient Egypt.
Naturally, Sarah finds Miriam very seductive. Will she be the latest in a long line of lovers, or can she change the outcome for herself?
This one was fine, but aside from the overly artsy stuff, I didn’t find much to write home about. Deneuve and Sarandon are both fine in their respective roles, but the movie doesn’t feel particularly deep to me. Sure, for 1983, it was probably a little transgressive to show Miriam and Sarah having a sexual relationship, but there’s always been an aura of that to vampire stories. At their core, aren’t they all at least a little sexual?
That said, I was impressed by Bowie. He’s suitably weird on his own, and he has the right look and behavior for a man who realizes far too late that he got the short end of the stick in this whole “immortality” thing. Likewise, I did find the old age make-up he wore rather good. But overall, it was one of those out-of-focus sort of movies that tries to look like art and instead comes up as at best mild titilation.
Grade: C+
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