Only Lovers Left Alive.

Adam and Eve, so righteously named, are husband and wife and have been for centuries. They are also vampires. Their love remains intact and the story gets going once Eve journeys from Morocco to stay with her lover, who resides in Detroit. We are given the impression that the couple spend time apart in order to keep their relationship filled with desire and longing. When Eve’s irritating and mischievous sister comes to stay, the couple’s routine is disrupted and destroyed and the sibling’s arrival leads to some problematic consequences. The film could have definitely looked better. It has been, after all, a season of great looking films – from Spike Jonze’s Her to David O. Russell’s American Hustle. Detroit provides a perfect backdrop for a vampire story but it isn’t taken full advantage of. Instead, Jarmusch is more interested in pointing our Jack White’s house and name-dropping his way through history. These two revelations may explain a lot about the problems we find in Only Lovers Left Alive. I also didn’t find it as funny or romantic as I wanted to. I might be alone here as most of the audience I sat through it with were chuckling away throughout.

I would honestly watch Tom Hiddleston in anything and I am perfectly happy to stare at him and sigh blissfully into my popcorn for two hours. Hiddleston gives the best performance he can in Jarmusch’s latest project but seems the most restrained. As well as a bad, acrylic wig, Hiddleston also has to put up with his pretty limited character. Adam is a musician; a dull and depressed one. The whole Cobain vibe is very uninteresting and the film is at its weakest when Hiddleston is left to discuss and play his numerous guitars which turns into a nerdy game of spot the Fender Telecaster. Tilda Swinton is undoubtedly one of the greatest actresses of the last twenty five years. She fits into Jarmusch’s universe effortlessly and is pretty obvious casting as Eve. She brings a grace to the vampire role as well as a humility. Her familiar voice, along with Hiddleston’s, is soothing and graceful. Mia Wasikowska and John Hurt are also on great form. Hurt is, well, being Hurt and Wasikowska brings a cheek and chaos to the story that gives it energy just as it’s starting to really sag. The flaws aside, at least Jim Jarmusch has tried to do something more exciting than most contemporary vampire films attempt to do. Yet, just when you think someone is going to refresh the worn out ‘vampire film’ we are left with proof that this is one category that is truly exhausted. Let’s just leave it alone, allow it to rest and revitalise, and maybe return to it in fifteen to twenty years. Agreed? All in favour, raise your hands.

Thanks for reading and let’s all keep supporting our beloved film industry.