I’ve seen plenty of film adaptations of Dracula but I’ve never seen one with a mermaid before.
It has only been a little over a year since the release of Robert Eggers’s staggeringly good Nosferatu, and just a few months since the kaleidoscopic metatextual rumination on all things vampiric, Radu Jude’s Dracula. Michael Almereyda’s underground 1994 New York look at Dracula’s daughter, Nadja, happens to be making the rounds at art houses right now, too. But this is a character that can never die, so another remix on Bram Stoker’s bloodsucking 1897 novel is always welcome so long as it has a distinct point of view.
Luckily, French director Luc Besson, whose career (and personal reputation) of late has been rather spotty, comes to the story eager to make it his own. With the full title Dracula: A Love Tale, this version goes heavy on presenting everyone’s favorite Romanian Count as the most devoted Wife Guy of the last 400 years, moping across the globe in search of the reincarnated version of his deceased spouse.
We open in the 1400s, with Prince Vladimir (Caleb Landry Jones) and his wife Elizabeta (Zoë Blue, who is Rosanna Arquette’s daughter, I have since learned) as a giggly married couple with a robust intimate life and a propensity to hurl flower petals at one another. Their bedroom choreography is interrupted when war comes to Wallachia, and the Prince must defend his homeland from invading Saracens.
Begrudgingly, Jones straps on his armor and helmet, which, when seen in full view, is the first evidence that this Dracula comes from the same visual stylist that made The Fifth Element. There’s almost a pop art quality to the interiors, exaggerating historical decorative elements to just the edge of camp.
The battle is a victory, but the Princess finds herself fleeing from baddies, racing across a snowscape littered with bear traps scattered around like land mines. She dies, and the Prince renounces God by killing his in-house Priest. We then jump ahead to the late 1800s, and to Paris, where an unnamed clergyman played by Christoph Waltz has been summoned to a mental asylum.
A woman named Maria (Matilda De Angelis), who functions as something of a hybrid of the Lucy character and the Renfield character of Dracula lore, is chained in a cell, ready to show off her chompers and promising to do anything for a drop of blood. Waltz (playing a spin on the Van Helsing character) is part of an order that’s been hunting vampires for centuries, but has never seen one in captivity before.
The action then moves to Romania, where a goofier-than-usual Jonathan Harker (Ewins Abid) bumbles his way to Castle Dracula. Jones’s weary Count, under ten tons of makeup and waited on by CGI gargoyles that have a bit of a Dobby the House Elf look to them, is convinced to tell his story. Centuries ago, after he quit his faith, he was condemned to the undead lifestyle (how this exactly happened is vague), but became convinced that since Elisabeta was a pure soul she would be reincarnated. He begins a quest to find her that involves travelling the globe and concocting an aphrodisiac perfume that causes women to swoon for him (leading to an unexpected dance number.) The costumes and sets dazzle in what my vague recollection of art history thinks is the Rococo style. (If it isn’t exactly that, it’s still rather punchy.)
At a particularly debauched French ball, he starts biting the necks of women to amass a private army of vampires that will scatter to the four winds and help him find the reincarnated Elisabeta. That’s what leads us to Maria, who has actually found the Count’s true love in the form of Mina, who is engaged to Jonathan Harker, who just so happens to be on the receiving end of this tale. What luck!
This leads to an eventual showdown which begins to more closely hew to the Stoker novel and the more traditional Dracula films. Indeed, there’s a scene or two that are quite similar to Eggers’ recent Nosferatu, even if the tone is different. While Eggers’ film does have its moments of humor, it is ultimately very earnest. Besson’s version is far more colorful, and boastful of its moody, goth attitude. The 2024 film simply was moody and goth. The latest version also has an extended sequence at a carnival that serves no real purpose other than looking great – and that's where that mermaid I mentioned earlier shows up, among other unexpected things.
In addition to the visual style, the best thing here is Jones’ performance. He’s not just swinging for the fences with his accent and centuries-old body movements, we really buy him as someone with a thoroughly broken heart who is unable to die from it. There’s a sequence of repeat suicide attempts that is inherently funny, but ultimately quite sad once he realizes he’s not getting anywhere. But even with the patina of lightheartedness, Jones’ scenes that are meant to be emotional catch you by surprise. The 36-year-old Texan (who played a vampire before, in Neil Jordan’s Byzantium) is truly a marvelous actor.
I would never suggest that a Dracula noob should start here. Besson’s film is like a band doing an unexpected cover version of a song you love. It’s not necessarily an essential, but a good opportunity to sing along.
