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Why Keanu Reeves' Performance Is The Secret Weapon Of Bram Stoker's Dracula
It's one of the most roundly reviled performances in horror movie history, but Keanu Reeves' much-maligned turn as Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula is the film's unheralded secret weapon. Released in 1992, Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of the Irish author's famous vampire novel received a mixed critical reception upon release. Like many adaptations, Bram Stoker's Dracula often diverged from the source novel, and the film was praised for adding a tragic gothic romance to what is traditionally a more straightforward story of good and evil.
The movie's flaws were also expounded upon, with some reviewers criticizing its over-the-top moments and long run-time. Special scorn was reserved for Keanu Reeves' turn as Jonathan Harker. Although the character is traditionally Dracula's ostensible protagonist, in Coppola's version of Stoker's story, Jonathan plays second fiddle to a more empathetic and centered version of the titular Count.
Reeves' dull incarnation of the novel's hero has been called flat, boring, and abysmal, with critics claiming that the then-young performer had no place acting alongside screen veterans Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins in the role. Reeves has turned down many high profile roles in the years since, so why was he cast in a part which is so unfitting? The reason—which few critics picked up on—is that Reeves' Harker provides a perfect deadpan audience insertion persona, and grounds all of the over-the-top, gothic madness surrounding him with a flat reaction to all the campy melodrama. The story of Dracula could easily have proven inaccessible to modern audiences and, with the rest of the supporting cast playing up the melodrama, it fell on Reeves to provide a more laid-back screen presence.
If Coppola wanted a Harker who fit the primary cast's tone, he would have needed to look no further than dueling hams Richard E. Grant and Cary Elwes, who both play lesser love interests of the doomed Lucy in this arguably overstuffed—and inarguably overdramatic—adaptation. The high drama and intense romance of Bram Stoker's Dracula make this adaptation unique, but with both of these actors typically being the most charismatic screen presence in everything they crop up in, it's a testament to the aesthetic and very specific sensibilities of Coppola's adaptation that they're lost in the mix. Grant and Elwes fail to make an impression among Gary Oldman's lovelorn vamp, Anthony Hopkins' goofy take on Van Helsing, and Winona Ryder's wild-eyed Mina.
In contrast, the Jonathan audiences got out of Keanu Reeves stands out precisely because his performance is so flat and affectless, thus creating a perfect contrast with the like of Oldman, Ryder, and Hopkins. While talented, veteran actors, their collective scenery-chewing could have easily become irritating without a straight man foil around to balance out the proceedings in Bram Stoker's Dracula. The criticism for Reeves' performance might have been harsh, but his straight-laced delivery filled a necessary purpose and, while not the most scene-stealing role, too much would have likely hurt Coppola's movie more than it helped.
