The Wisdom of Crocodiles
"Neuropsychologists say that 'we don't have one brain. We have
three--one that is human, built over another that is mammalian, built over
yet another that's reptilian. So, when a psychiatrist asks you to lie down
on the couch, you're being asked to lie down with a horse and with a
crocodile.'" [Steven Grlscz]A wrecked car is suspended in the treetops, the driver a young woman.
Investigators notice that there is no blood, but they make nothing of it.
Nor do they notice her fiancé, Steven Grlscz [Jude Law], among the bystanders.
Later that day, Steven writes one word in his diary: despair.
While waiting for the Tube, Steven saves Maria Vaughan from jumping
in front of the train. He gives her his card, she calls him, and they
begin a love affair. When Steven is assured that Maria has feelings for
him, he takes her to his bed, drinks her blood, and then drives to the
coast where he disposes of her body in the sea. This time the word entered
in his diary is: disappointment.
Steven Grlscz is a vampire, but far from typical. He can go out in
the sunlight, eat regular food, does not sleep in a coffin, and has no
fangs. Yet he needs to drink blood once a month or he will die. His
favorite target is young women with whom he first develops a relationship.While touring a museum or industrial plant of some sort, Steven
sketches asthmatic Anne Levels [Elina Löwensohn]. When they meet later in a cappucino
shoppe, she asks to see the drawings. They exchange names and make a date
for Wednesday night. When Anne breaks the date in order to work on some
waterproof concrete (she's a structural engineer), Steven brings her
Chinese takeout. So begins the carefully choreographed relationship
between vampire and new prey.However, Stephen is worried when he overhears a news broadcast about
the body of Maria Vaughan being found in a fishing net. He immediately
telephones the police, probably because he knows that the trail will
eventually lead to him. Inspector Healey [Timothy Spall] and Sgt Roche [Jack Davenport] come to question
him. Steven makes up a story about not seeing Maria after they had an
argument over her wanting to marry him and him not wanting to continue the
relationship with her. Steven becomes their prime suspect, and Inspector
Healey begins to tail him. One evening, after Steven sees Anne off on the
train, Healey is attacked by a gang of hoods who beat him and steal the
crucifix he wears around his neck. Steven intervenes and saves Healey. So
begins the carefully choreographed relationship between vampire and
detective.Meanwhile, things with Anne are going nicely. In his diary, Steven
describes her as confident, independent, witty, and full of strange little
stories and sayings. Steven keeps notes on all his intendeds, because the
goal is to woo their trust and love. Anne visits him where he works as a
medical researcher investigating crystals from human kidneys and bladders.
Steven contends that extreme emotional states can cause the body to form
crystals, and he shows her a number of them which he names "rage,
resentment, spite, malice, and bad temper." When Steven and Anne are
attacked by the gang of hoods from the Tube, Steven saves Anne in an
amazing show of superstrength and speed, apparently some of the vampiric
qualities that he *does* possess.Anne is falling in love, but Healey and Roche are still suspicious of
Steven. They question people along the route that Steven might have taken
to the seashore and find a toll collector who may remember him. Steven is
brought in for a line-up, but the toll collector fingers someone else.
Steven and Healey strike up a friendship in which they confide personal
things with each other. Steven retrieves the crucifix from Healey's
attacker and returns it to Healey. When Healey learns that Steven actually
saved Maria from committing suicide, he begins to doubt that Steven has it
in him to be a killer.One night, Anne is in a bad mood and snaps at Steven. She immediately
apologizes, but Steven leaves in a huff and hides out, refusing to return
Anne's phone calls. After Anne has to perform a tracheostomy on an injured
man, she admits to herself that she misses Steven and calls him. Steven
has been drawing pictures of her and admits that he misses her, too. They
plan to meet at his apartment, the first time that Anne has been invited
there.Steven knows that he is dying and that he needs blood. His body is
breaking down, he bleeds and doesn't heal, and he has to wear an alarm to
remind him to breathe while he's sleeping. It's time to feed on Anne but,
when he tries, he can't bring himself to kill her. Instead, he explains to
her that he is a vampire who feeds on the emotions in blood. Like kidney
stones, he says, emotions are "things" carried in the blood. Some
emotions, e.g., resentment, malice, despair, and disappointment, only
serve to make him sick. He prefers to feed on love. He thinks that perfect
love might cure him if he ever finds it. Could Anne be this perfect love?
Anne isn't buying it. To show his love for her, Steven lets her go. He
even hands her a knife and informs her that, with one cut, he will bleed
to death in 20 minutes.Anne puts down the knife and, rather than run, she stays with him,
tending him as he grows weaker and weaker, bathing his eyes when he goes
temporarily blind, waking him when he forgets to breathe, offering to go
to the chemist when they run out of elastoplasts (bandaids). Steven is
even more convinced of Anne's love for him and, as his end approaches, he
knows what he must do. While Anne is at the chemist, he prepares for his
dinner. When Anne realizes what he is doing, she runs to the roof,
intending to kill herself rather than let him kill her. As she rescinds
her love for him ("I know you for what you are...I don't love you!") and
Steven replies, "It may not be in your heart, but it's still in your
blood," a big tear runs down his cheek.Anne jumps, but Steven catches her hand just in time. She removes a
large stickpin from her hair and plunges it through Steven's hand. Still,
he succeeds in pulling her back to the roof, whether to save her life or
his dinner is up to you to decide. As Steven lay dying, he muses. "When I
was a boy," he says, "I fell out of a tree but I managed just to grab a
branch. I hung there for a long time, terrified, the silence and the pain
in my arms and the blood pounding in my ears. And then I fell. I don't
remember what happened when I hit the ground. All I can remember now is
the agony of holding on and the wonderful feeling of letting go."
With that, Steven lets go of life, and Anne walks home in tears.
[Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]
cult, murder, storytelling, romantic