Only Lovers Left Alive

Adam and Eve are quintessential 60s survivors; a musician and a devourer of literature still mired in a psychadelic haze. Yet they are not what they seem, for they are centuries older, two of a dwindling population of vampires battling to balance their need for blood with the lethal pollution of their food supply by humanity's folly. Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive follows the two over the course of about a week as their carefully ordered lives are disrupted by Eve's anarchic sister, threatening their very existence.

In many ways, Only Lovers Left Alive is a movie about drugs and music which happens to have vampires in it. Faced with a human population full of chemicals and environmental toxins, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) feed only on 'the good stuff'; carefully sourced, decanted blood free from contamination which they acquire from their 'dealers', a Detroit doctor for Adam and 16th century poet Christopher Marlowe* (John Hurt) for Eve. They are disdainful of the destructive natures of the 'zombies' - and it is telling that only humans are ever referred to by a monstrous title - and Adam in particular is almost consumed by the tragic destruction of the scientists and musicians he has sponsored over the centuries.

As an essentially character driven piece, the film rides on the performances of Hiddleston and Swinton, who are both excellent. Hurt, Mia Wachowski as Eve's sister Ava and Anton Yelchin as Adam's human fixer Ian are also superb, and in the film's enclosed world, wrapped in Velvet Underground-esque jangling guitars and long, loving montages, that is enough.

If I had a quibble with the film it would be that the blood = drugs theme is too direct, the feeding scenes too reminiscent of Trainspotting, but it would be a minor quibble.

* There's a reference to his waistcoat which feels almost like a nod to Shakespeare in Love, but that seems odd from a hardcore indie like Jarmusch.