4. Interview With the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a remarkable story of human nature set across several centuries, albeit with homoerotic undertones so blatant you probably could have played Soft Cell in the background and nobody would've batted an eyelid. With it's lavish storytelling and excellent production values (it was Oscar-nominated for both best original score and best costume design) it could've been one of the best films of recent films. As it is, it's sort of alright- a bit long-winded but nonetheless functional as a tale of gothic macabre. So why the decline? I reckon it's Pitt. The fact is that he's just boring in the role. I understand that Louis de Point Du Lac is meant to be a very closed off individual, but for a character that's supposed to be full of internal anguish about his situation, he's surprising buttoned-up and stilted. Even when he eventually completely loses it in some Paris catacombs, you still get the impression that whilst he's read about emotions, he's never actually experienced one properly. Amongst all the Oscar-nominated aesthetics, his performance just slides into the background as the least interesting thing of all. Consequently, putting such a character as the leading narrator in a film can only invite trouble. His deadpan delivery proves to be a weight on the film, detracting away from the varied and interesting plot. Such a performance would be understandable if Louis was supposed to be the straight man (figuratively speaking, wink, wink, nudge, nudge), but he quite patently isn't; that's the job of Christian Slater's interviewer. Louis is meant to show us what it's like to be a vampire; he may not like it, but at least show us that properly, for god's sake. All that comes across instead is a charisma vacuum of the highest order. Pitt may have been aiming for ethereal, but Louis just comes across as boring. With this blank slate in place the film ends up being utterly dominated by Tom Cruise's Lestat. He's interesting in all the ways Louis isn't; he has his own struggles and his own opinions, and most importantly of all, he actively shows them to the audience. It also certainly helps that he's nothing short of outrageously flamboyant all the way through the film, addressing Lestat's selfishness with the devil-may-care attitude that serves to drive on an already egomaniacal character to even greater heights. Louis on the other hand, despite wearing all the decadent frippery of the era, looks dull- he's positively cowed by Cruise. It's one thing to be out-acted by Tom Cruise; at that moment in time, he was one of the most talented working actors in Hollywood. However, when you're being upstaged by a 12-year-old Kirsten Dunst (who admittedly is terrifying as Claudia), it's probably time to revisit the parameters of your role and ask yourself the question; should I emote a bit? If that means you wouldn't find yourself embarrassed by the girl who would later help inflict
Spider-Man 3 onto an unwitting world, then the answer is probably yes. Out-acted by the cast and dwarfed by the production, this all just proves to be one abominably average misfire for an actor just about hitting his A-lister stride. He just looks like a pretty face who's wandered over from an Armani advert, and seems slightly confused as to why he's dressed up as a French nobleman.