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I think it’s safe to say that we’re all pretty tired of vampires, right? Right. But no one is as tired of vampires as the vampires themselves in Jim Jarmusch’s newest film, Only Lovers Left Alive. A stylish and unique modernization of the undead genre, Jarmusch imagines the blood-suckers as world weary hipsters rather than sparkling embodiments of teenage angst. And while his newest might be a little short on excitement, it goes a long way towards returning some dignity to the supernatural villains who used to be the definition of dangerous cool.
The film stars Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as our two lovers. Centuries old vampires living an ocean apart. Hiddleston’s Adam makes his home in America’s largest ghost town, Detroit, where he spends his evening holed up in a castle-like mansion lost in the city’s industrial graveyard. Swinton’s Eve on the other hand creeps through the narrow alleyways of Tangiers, rendezvousing with the undead playwright Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt) who doubles as her supplier of clean human blood. When Adam makes a particularly morose phone call to Eve, she packs up and heads to Detroit (an overnight flight of course) to cheer her lover up.
Reunited, the two vampires fall into the routines of comfortable intimacy. They listen to music amidst the cobweb-like cables and wires in Adam’s studio, they go for nighttime drives to Jack White’s house, and they drink blood and pass out on the couch. Y’know, all the good stuff. But when Eve discovers a wooden bullet in a revolver next to Adam’s bed, she realizes his melancholy may run deeper than the normal brooding vampire facade. Things are further complicated when Eve’s sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) arrives on the scene from LA – a testament to why you never turn teenage party-girls into vampires. Soon the lovers are facing a crisis, and we’re breathing a sigh of relief because there’s only so much industrial alt-rock you can listen to before you need something to happen.
And there lies the biggest beef with the film…it’s a little slow. Audiences that think a vampire film means grotesque killing sprees and blood-soaked orgies should stick to True Blood. Jarmusch’s vampires are more like junkies than nocturnal predators. They make regular trips to their hookups (the aforementioned John Hurt is great, and Jeffrey Wright is equally entertaining as Adam’s hospital connection) then return to the mansion to zone out on the couch. It’s both realistic and a little disappointing. After centuries of existence there can’t be much that seems all that important. And of course a modern vampire would go to a hospital to get pure blood but…can’t they kill one person at least?
Despite this the film is a delight to watch. Jarmusch approaches the genre with a playful attitude while maintaining a nice respect for the underlying mythology, meaning the film should appeal to vampire lovers as well as the casual viewer. The script is whip smart, and evokes the romantic feel of Stoker’s Dracula while seamlessly retrofitting it for a modern audience (a castle in the middle of industrial Detroit? I mean that’s…that’s just perfect). Hiddleston and Swinton are devilishly cool in their roles – like predatory cats, they move across the screen with an economy of motion that suggests a lurking danger beneath. Add to that the music and the beautiful production design and Only Lovers Left Alive might be the most stylish film of the year.
Sleek, haunting and darkly comic, the film skirts the line between style and pretension but holds together in the end. It certainly won’t please everyone, and audiences who prefer their vampires with some real bite will leave disappointed. But like it’s titular lovers, the film isn’t trying to impress anyone. After a decade of easily accessible MTV vampires, Jarmusch has taken the genre and distressed it. Instead of dusting it off, he’s added some dust. And he’s done a bloody good job.
Reviewed by Evan Arppe.
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