The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by
Female-forward and class-conscious, allegorical and adventurous, Byzantium is almost the anti-Batman.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom, United States, Ireland · 2012
Rated R · 1h 58m
Director Neil Jordan
Starring Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, Sam Riley, Jonny Lee Miller
Genre Drama, Fantasy, Thriller
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
Two mysterious women seek refuge in a run-down coastal resort town, and they possess a lethal secret—they were born 200 years ago and survive on human blood. As knowledge of their secret spreads through the town, their past begins to catch up with them, and it carries deadly consequences.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by
Female-forward and class-conscious, allegorical and adventurous, Byzantium is almost the anti-Batman.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
The movie is gorgeous, mesmerizing, poetic; the lyricism actually heightened by harsh jets of gore.
Forlorn depictions of love and death may dignify Neil Jordan's film, but narrative withholding ultimately drives a stake into its unmistakable heart.
By the standards of Jordan's earlier films, "Byzantium" is unquestionably a minor achievement, but its technical specs help flesh out a thick environment that elevates the proceedings to a lyrical plane.
It isn’t just the bright colors and the costumes but every visual aspect of Byzantium that sings. Neil Jordan knows where to put the camera. It’s just a shame he wasn’t able to inject a little life inside that frame.
Jordan’s poetic sensibilities more than make up for any flaws. His uncanny aptitude for conjuring up resonantly metaphorical images — from a pointed fingernail pushing toward a vein to a waterfall turning into a literal river of blood — proves there’s plenty of life left in this undead genre.
The Playlist by Kevin Jagernauth
Though given two committed turns by a tremendously sexy and vicious Arterton and a solid-as-always Ronan, Byzantium often feels as gray and lifeless as the corpses in the film.
A mixture of tough and wistful and reflective and brutal, this is the ideal vampire movie for Twi-hards who’ve had their hearts broken for the first time and want to move on to a less cosy vision of eternal romance with a side order of addiction.
Jordan’s apparent resolve to make an anti-Twilight unfortunately results in a movie that, if not for a fistful of moments of shock, style and excess, would be as drained of colour and tension as Ronan’s victims are of hemoglobin.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore
There’s not much new here, but at least Byzantium has well-acted, compelling characters telling its time-worn tale with style. That’s the best we can hope for, these days, from this genre that will not die.
How far will we go in the name of security?
Jack's an observer who knows that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose.
NO ONE CAN ESCAPE THE SINS OF THE PAST
Terrifying medicine!
One new drug. Seven volunteers. Seventeen hours of hell.
The very waters that once inspired Moby Dick, this film captures the harsh, unforgiving world of fishermen in starkly haunting, yet beautiful detail.