An American Mini Series remake of the French film of the same name, by the same director (Olivier Assayas).
Mira Harberg (Alicia Vikander) is an actress who's just arrived in Paris to shoot the remake of Les Vampires, a classic French film. At the same time, she's promoting her recent hit, and runs into her ex-girlfriend Laurie (Adria Arjona) while doing so (she's engaged to the director), which causes awkwardness.
Her role playing Irma Vep in Les Vampires is really a dream come true, since Mira is a huge admirer of the character. It comes as a breath of fresh air as she's disillusioned with her career and a recent tabloid scandal. Making the film, however, proves far more difficult than she anticipated: the director René Vidal (Vincent Macaigne) is unstable and eccentric, while the cast and crew are disorganized.
As Mira struggles on, her role and life begin to blur...
The miniseries's cast also includes Byron Bowers, Tom Sturridge, and Fala Chen. It was released June 6, 2022 on HBO.
Tropes:
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Mira, playing Irma, dresses up as a young man. Because she's already pretty, her male persona is quite handsome too.
- Autoerotic Asphyxiation: Gottfried nearly kills himself accidentally doing this. He's found hanged in the closet and saved though at first no one's sure if he'll survive.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Mira and her ex Laurie subtly or explicitly insult each other, in between flirting, with the latter even making a veiled proposition.
- Blaming the Victim: René is accused of this after he defends Irma being raped in one scene by saying she's a murderer and villain as well.
- Bloodless Carnage: The shootings in all of Les Vampires' versions are bloodless, with victims simply falling to the ground after being shot at close range repeatedly.
- The Cameo: Kristen Stewart in the last episode shows up to play Mira's friend Lianna briefly (they don't interact).
- Character Title: It's named after the lead character in the film that's being remade.
- Closet Key: It turns out Laurie was the first woman Mira has been with. She admits to Zoe that it's left her with some confused feelings, although Mira doesn't appear concerned either.
- Cloudcuckoolander: René, the highly eccentric director who is taking antidepressants and once drove into an actor with his car. Once the film's insurers find out all this, they won't cover it with him there.
- Failed a Spot Check: Eamonn and Lianna are so busy having sex in bed that neither notices as Mira (who's also in the suite with neither knowing) sneaks past them to leave. It helps that they have the covers obscuring them.
- Gay Conservative: Gottfried presents himself this way in an interview, claiming he's a "former" gay man who recites common right-wing talking points (but he may be joking).
- Great Escape: Irma manages to escape after she's sentenced to life in Algeria, jumping from the train and then lying on the tracks while it passes over her. She returns and is given a triumphant welcome by the Vampires.
- Hypocrite: Laurie calls Mira a hypocrite for complaining that she'd cheated on her with Herman, as she'd been unfaithful before. Mira says they had an open relationship, though this only applied to her. Laurie naturally says she's a hypocrite over that too.
- Intangibility: Mira does this after adopting the Irma Vep persona, phasing through walls and gets into her ex Laurie's suite through a couple others.
- Lingerie Scene: Laurie undresses to her underwear when getting intimate with her fiancé Herman, which shows off her body to the audience since she's very good-looking.
- Lipstick Lesbian:
- Mira and Laurie are both bisexual women who like feminine garb a lot of the time, along with wearing their hair long. It's not too extreme though, and both also wear other styles.
- Zoe, an elegant feminine woman, also turns out to be a lesbian.
- Magical Realism: Irma, after really getting into playing Irma and wearing the costume while not on set, develops an ability to walk through walls, which she uses to spy on people. She isn't surprised at all, nor is this treated as being very odd by the narrative, while the rest of things remain grounded in known reality.
- Male Frontal Nudity: An older man walks out of the shower completely naked as Mira sneaks through his room to enter Laurie's.
- Mistaken for Gay: Due to Mira's bisexuality being tabloid fodder and with her previously having dated Laurie, the paparrazi think her current assistant Regina is her girlfriend, to Regina's annoyance. It later turns out Regina's into Mira, however, kissing her and telling a friend she'd gladly sleep with her, so the mistake is only about them being in a relationship.
- Ms. Fanservice: Mira is quite good-looking, slinking around for much of the series playing Irma Vep (or kind of becoming her) in a skin-tight catsuit. Also, she's seen naked from the back going into the shower.
- The Peeping Tom: Mira spies on her ex Laurie and Herman, Laurie's fiancé, by peeking around the corner as they get intimate after sneaking into their suite. However, she leaves before the two have sex.
- Plot Hole: Mira and other actors point out problems with Les Vampires' plot, for instance she asks why a very skilled criminal gang would write down their secrets in a red codebook (however René notes people do that with passwords even now, so she concedes the point on that one).
- Polyamory: Discussed as Mira claims she and Laurie had an open relationship, though this only allowed Mira herself to see other people while they were together.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Some of the cast and crew strongly object to René putting in the scene with Irma being raped. They don't accept this when he protests that this was in the original film and he's recreating it, saying things were very different (i.e. worse) in the 1910s when this was first shot regarding rape. Him saying it's okay because Irma is herself a villain after this doesn't help. Mira though, who's playing Irma, doesn't mind it and says he should keep the scene in.
- The Remake: It's a remake of the 1996 French film by the same name. Both are also about remaking Les Vampires, a 1915 film, In-Universe as well.
- Sex with the Ex: After ex-boyfriend Eamonn visits her distraught over having lost his baby with his girlfriend Lianne, Mira comforts him, which leads the pair into a one-night stand. She regrets it the next day, breaking contact with him.
- Shower Scene: Mira is shown getting into the shower and standing nude from the back while Regina looks on.
- Show Within a Show: The series is about remaking a classic French serial, Les Vampires.
- Significant Anagram:
- The series shows footage from Les Vampires where Philippe realizes that "Irma Vep" is an anagram of "vampire".
- Mira, the lead actress in the remake, is the anagram of her character Irma too.
- Significant Double Casting: Alicia Vikander in the series plays both Mira, who is playing Irma Vep in the modern Show Within a Show, but also Musidora, the French actress who'd first played the character in Les Vampires seen through many flashbacks to its 1915 production. This is shown as Mira slowly becomes Irma over time.
- Spy Catsuit: Mira wears one as Irma Vep, slinking around in the outfit sensually. Then her ex Laurie has her show it too, as they flirt over how Mira looks wearing this.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Irma dresses up as a man to fulfill a criminal ploy, which results in Mira doing the same while she plays her.
- Token Minority: The cast is largely white, with a few exceptions:
- Herman Ray, an African-American director who's promoting his latest firm in Paris, is a supporting character.
- Grégory Desormeaux, an older man who's a producer for Les Vampires' production is also black.
- Tragic Stillbirth: Eamonn goes to Mira for comfort, telling her Lianna was pregnant and miscarried. Mira is very sympathetic, telling him she once suffered a miscarriage even earlier than Lianna's. What makes it worse too is neither of them can stop working even for a little while, since they're both in full time contracts signed before she got pregnant. Later she reunites with him and they decide to try again.
- Twofer Token Minority: Most of the cast is white, but it has a couple women of color:
- Mira's ex-girlfriend Laurie, who's in a couple episodes though only a few scenes, is a bisexual like her who's olive-skinned (played by a Latina).
- Cynthia Keng, a Hong Kong actress playing Irma Vep's accomplice, is a supporting character (both ways).
- Working with the Ex: Not formally, but Mira's ex-girlfriend Laurie is now engaged to Herman, who directed the last film she'd starred in (leaving Mira for him). As they're promoting the film, they keep running into each other, which is very awkward (particularly since both are clearly still attracted to each other, and Laurie keeps flirting with her).
