Neil Jordan’s absurdly lavish vampire movie was the first sign that Tom Cruise was willing to toy with his screen persona. His bottle-blond Lestat, chomping through 18th-century Louisiana, is a pansexual delight. He poses as the great seducer, yet the reality he craves is one of domestic harmony, with Brad Pitt’s lugubrious (and miscast) Louis as an eternal life partner and Kirsten Dunst’s fiery Claudia as their surrogate daughter.
Pitt has since claimed that he was miserable throughout production, which explains a lot. And though the film proved a turning point in Cruise’s career, as well as a demonstration of his versatility (there’s no Magnolia without Lestat), the performance of the movie belongs to Dunst. Only 11 at the time, her range is extraordinary, and
