Neil Jordan directs Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst in this strange adaptation of the homoerotic gothic bestseller. 

Better than I remember but the main pleasures are some fantastic production design and the campily illicit thrill of watching megastars Cruise (working well against type) and Pitt (not quite there yet in a role Tom would have wisely turned down in the 80s) engaging in a frilly same sex relationship and raising a child. Dunst in her debut blows everyone else off the screen with a turn that bleeds both malice and pathos. When she is shunted to the background and Cruise disappears for the second hour everything becomes dull and uncertain. You get the feeling the whole thing could do with either a focussed plot or a breezier Forrest Gump / Benjamin Button style narrative; with our bloodsuckers interacting through history a little more… and either way a little nastier too, please. What we wind up with is the tale of how one vegan vamp couldn’t find anyone to go see Tequila Sunrise with at the cinema. Too handsome and transgressive enough to dismiss but hardly the stuff of nightmares.

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