Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Been watching a lot of vampire movies this week, for some reason - almost certainly more than I've seen over the course of the rest of the year. I'm not normally a huge fan of the genre, for various reasons - I'm not a horror buff, and while vampire movies aren't necessarily gorefests, the ones that aren't tend to be overly-romantic nonsense of the kind peddled by Anne Rice or Stephanie Meyer, and I was lucky enough to have grown out of that guff long before it became a genre staple. This week, however, the intersection of what I felt like watching and what was easily available happened to be smack dab in the middle of Transylvania.

Except that vampires don't tend to live in Transylvania any more, do they? At least, the modern ones don't. They inhabit fashionably down-at-heel districts of faded cities where the urban decay echoes their own status of tragic undeath, possibly because Disney have bought out all the gothic-style castles for their live-action fairytale retellings... but I digress.

Only Lovers Left Alive  is Jim Jarmusch's take on the vampire myth. It tells the story of... well, no, it doesn't really tell any story at all. It features, however, lovers and spouses Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), trying to make sense of their immortal lives amidst the human "zombies". Currently living as a reclusive rock god, Tom finds himself growing increasingly depressed, eventually summoning Eva away from her bookish life in Tangiers to join him in Detroit. Over the film's two-hour run-time we learn about their past and witness the lengths they go to to obtain blood, which they consume with all the ritual of the dedicated absinthomane. Their fragile happiness is disturbed, however, by the arrival of Eve's young sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), whose outlook on life might politely be described as slightly more, well, unreconstructed...

The good

As might be expected from Jarmusch, this is a beautiful, unconventional piece of filmmaking, languid and lyrical, with a sort of aching sadness offset with flashes of dark, dry humour. At its heart are a series of fantastic performances, with Hiddleston in particular a revelation. He and Swinton make for an utterly convincing and oddly touching couple whose centuries-long relationship negates the need for personal space. They're heartbreakingly beautiful, of course, but so are all the vampires, including John Hurt , whose Christopher Marlowe (yes, that one) stole my heart even more than the two leads. Wasikowska, meanwhile, as the bratty younger sister, is occasionally in danger of walking off with the entire movie, providing it with an injection of energy that some might argue is badly needed.

The locations look great, too - more than that, they look distinctive, which is no mean feat for a film that takes place entirely in low light conditions. Detroit is used as a metaphor for Adam's declining mental state, while Tangiers is every bit as mysterious and exotic as Eve herself. The strong sense of place lends the film atmosphere, and is only enhanced by a soundtrack created in part by Jarmusch himself.

The bad

I couldn't quite escape the nagging feeling I was watching Twilight for intellectuals. Only Lovers Left Alive still felt quite a lot like wish fulfilment, just for people with slightly loftier wishes. Don't get me wrong, I was swept away by this beautiful, tragic tale of the beautiful, tragic undead. I wanted to be with the lead characters. I wanted to be the lead characters. I'm not. I'm a short, fat part-time librarian.

This may just be the greatest tragedy of all.

The verdict

No verdict available, sorry. Too busy bemoaning my own crashing ordinariness. I enjoyed the film, though, and if you think you're above this sort of nonsense, chances are you will, too.