4 stars out of 5
Is this a Jim Jarmusch autobiography? An aging vampire who fetishizes vintage rock ‘n roll? I’ve been a big Jarmusch fan since college. His last film, 2009’s The Limits of Control, tested the limits of his faithful followers — there wasn’t much in the way of plot or dialogue. Still, I dug it. This artsy vampire flick is more straightforward, and I like it even more.
Not that plot is a top priority in Only Lovers Left Alive either. Rather, we get a high-concept scenario: Adam and Eve are a long-distance married vampire couple trying to make their way in the mixed-up modern world. (He’s in Detroit, she’s in Tangiers.) That may sound like the set-up for a zany comedy—and there are laughs here—but this is no Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Jarmusch uses the idea of vampires as nocturnal entities to great effect here. It’s a lonely, barren, after-hours world his characters inhabit. (Burned-out Detroit does a fabulous job playing itself.) Tom Hiddleston’s Adam is a depressed, reclusive rocker churning out Sonic Youth-like instrumentals. In an earlier era, he gave compositions to Schubert. Jarmusch is clearly pleased with his idea that vampires have been compelled, through the ages, to anonymously put great works of art into society. It’s vampire as indie auteur, frustrated with the “zombie” masses.
The casting here is tremendous. Tilda Swinton was a knockout in Limits of Control, and she’s spookily stunning here as Eve. She is the supportive, encouraging, ultra-cool, mature wife. Anton “Chekov” Yelchin is terrific as Adam’s devoted slacker-rocker gopher. Mia Wasikowska embodies sex and trouble as Eve’s kid sister—and she actually does resemble Swinton. (The arrival of sister “Ava” kicks whatever plot there is into gear.) Jeffrey Wright has a couple of fun scenes as a semi-reluctant blood-supplying night-shift doctor, and John Hurt’s Christopher Marlowe is the vampire who really wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays.
If I was Jarmusch, I might’ve kept the mood more consistently somber. Some gags, such as Adam pointing out Jack White’s childhood home to Eve, kind of fall flat. But overall it’s a cool, compelling, late-night world that Jarmusch has created, one I wouldn’t mind wandering, bloodthirsty.
Jack Silbert, curator