ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE – The Review

Hipster vampires for the art-house crowd from Jim Jarmusch. ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE bears the director’s signature deadpan approach and deliberate pace and his fans will enjoy it, but viewers unfamiliar with the indie-cool Jarmusch style or those expecting bloody vampire conventions may find it a long 123 minutes. It barely has fangs, but ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE is worth seeing for stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, irresistible as Adam and Eve, a long-married pair of pale, smart, funny, and sexy creatures of the night. I suspect it will connect with a certain audience and predict significant cult status because of these two great characters, but I wish Jarmusch had given them more to do.

Set against the dilapidated desolation of Detroit, ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE is the tale of Adam (Hiddleston), an underground musician distressed by the direction of the human race (he calls the living ‘Zombies’). Adam’s admiring zombie pal Ian (Anton Yelchin) runs his errands such as acquiring a single .38-caliber bullet – one made of hard wood. Dr. Watson (droll scene-stealer Jeffrey Wright ), whom Adam visits at the blood bank restocks his food supply, but Adam is mopey and depressed, so persuades his wife, Eve (Tilda Swinton), living in Tangier, to come visit. Adam and Eve may or may not be the first man and woman to inhabit the earth, but they’ve been married a long, long time (she blames Percy Shelley and Lord Byron for being a bad influence on Adam).  Her Moroccan supplier is none other than Elizabethan tragedian Christopher Marlowe (a wizened John Hurt), who lives in the back of a bar and dispenses red nourishment. Eve arrives in Detroit, the couple argue, care for each other, play chess, and drive among the ruins of the city. They reminisce about all their famous poet, musician and scientists friends from centuries past, but trouble arrives in the form of Eve’s hungry visiting vampire sister, Ava (Wasikowska).

Jim Jarmusch’ first film STRANGER THAN PARADISE was about a pair of misfits who spent all their time at the horse track only to take a vacation to Florida where they spent all their time at the dog track.  ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE is similar in its meandering narrative. Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as Eve. The actress is watchable even in scenes like the one where she simply packs her suitcase (with mostly books) and there’s great chemistry between her and the world-weary Hiddleston (it’s never a distraction that Swinton is 20 years older). The dialog is sharp deadpan fun, though not without a few groaners (“how was Mary Wollstonecraft?” Asks Eve. “Delicious” is Adam’s reply) and some elements, such as a snack of O-negative Popsicles, are just goofy. ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE works well up to a point but I felt it didn’t know when to end. When the plot dries up an hour in, Jarmusch apparently thinks that more dialog about vintage guitars, first-edition books, vinyl albums, and other cool retro stuff can keep things going, but it doesn’t quite work as ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE eventually loses steam and struggles to reach the final credits.

3 of 5 Stars

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE opens in St. Louis Friday May 2nd at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater