Vamps
Director: Amy Heckerling
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter, Dan Stevens, Sigourney Weaver, Malcolm McDowell
***
Despite arriving without fanfare, Heckerling and Silverstone's first reunion since 1995's Clueless puts a funny, zeitgeist-nailing spin on the vampire genre. Goody (Silverstone) and her best friend Stacy (Ritter) are the titular Manhattan bloodsuckers.
Unbeknown to the latter, who was “turned” by Goody in 1992, her friend is 200 years old and struggling to keep up with modern life, which feels increasingly puzzling to her.
Heckerling uses Goody’s displacement to make some sharp points about what we might have lost in the age of iPhones and how the past defines our relationship with the present.
In this she is ably aided by Silverstone, a warm mix of goofy charm and wistfulness. Not everything works, but the film’s wit, humour and warmth make up for its unevenness.