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"Director: Neil Jordan; Screenwriter: Moira Buffini; Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Caleb Landry Jones, Sam Riley; Running time: 118 mins; Certificate: 15  Finally, a full-blooded and truly original vampire movie, offering an antidote to the Sweet Valley-style sudsiness of the Twilight franchise. Although Saoirse Ronan plays a love-struck teenage vampire, two hundred years of walking the Earth gives her a broader perspective on life and it weighs on her, painfully. But if she&amp;#039;s the heart of the film, Gemma Arterton is the guts of it as mother Clara. Much blood is spilled and heads literally roll (to startling effect), but director Neil Jordan is as much concerned with the psychological burden of killing, echoing his 1994 classic Interview with the Vampire. Except in this adaptation of Moira Buffini&amp;#039;s play (she also wrote the script), the bloodsucking becomes a metaphor for the constant yet stifling flow of a mother&amp;#039;s love. Clara poses as the big sister, striding onto screen in fishnet stockings and writhing around in a punter&amp;#039;s lap at a seaside strip club. She sells her body because it means nothing to her, except that it keeps a roof over Eleanor&amp;#039;s (Ronan) head. Of course, the sexual politics aren&amp;#039;t so straightforward as Clara insists on dinner afterwards \u00E2\u20AC\u201C and often takes it straight from the jugular.  Eleanor isn&amp;#039;t so hard-bitten. She only feeds on the sick and the elderly \u00E2\u20AC\u201C more like euthanasia than murder \u00E2\u20AC\u201C and she worries for Clara&amp;#039;s latest meal ticket, the lonely landlord of a B&amp;amp;B (a typically hangdog Daniel Mays). Clara turns his place into a brothel after fleeing their last digs in a mad hurry, to escape the clutches of a man who appears to know their secret. Eleanor is also desperate to talk about the past, which is seen in surreal flashes that haunt her through the ages. It begins two centuries prior with Sam Riley and Jonny Lee Miller as brothers in arms and later, bound by a supernatural force at a distant waterfall that runs red with blood. No women allowed: Clara and Eleanor are interlopers in an epic power game played by men. The mystery is still unfolding for Eleanor and writing things down eventually attracts the attention of a youth worker (Tom Hollander offering some mild comic relief) and the social services. Her only friend is another winsome misfit, Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), but their romance tends to drag rather than blossom, feeling too much like a concession to the Twilight crowd. Buffini&amp;#039;s plot only thickens when Eleanor unearths more of her mother&amp;#039;s secrets and the brotherhood finally catches up with them. Though she is immortal, there is a difficult coming-of-age for Eleanor as she begins to understand (instead of judging) the primal instincts that define her mother. Frank is merely the prize on offer if she can cut those apron strings. In the last stages, Jordan ups the ante with fast-paced action and female hysteria building to a high crescendo. His vision of the English seaside in winter \u00E2\u20AC\u201C garish yet bleak \u00E2\u20AC\u201C provides a suitably eerie backdrop for a story that is dark, richly textured, exotic and gritty. Some may prefer straight horror thrills, or a hero to swoon over, but just as many will relish something meatier to sink their teeth into.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a483005/byzantium-review-full-blooded-and-truly-original-vampire-movie/>