Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 romance drama vampire film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, and John Hurt. It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
After living for centuries, vampire Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is a reclusive musician who cannot get accustomed to the modern world and all of its new technology. Adam pays Ian (Anton Yelchin), his only human friend, to buy vintage guitars and recording equipment. Adam asks Ian to have a wooden bullet made for him, so he can take his own life. Adam survives on blood-bank donations regularly supplied by Doctor Watson (Jeffrey Wright), who is happy to take Adam’s money and not ask any questions. While Adam lives in a deserted area of Detroit, his wife Eve (Tilda Swinton) lives in Tangier, where she shares a regular blood supply with her friend, another vampire named Marlowe (John Hurt).
During a phone FaceTime conversation, Eve senses Adam’s depression with society and decides to leave Tangier to be with him. The lovers unite and are content enjoying each others company, eating blood popsicles, playing chess, dancing to music at home, and driving around the city at night. Shortly after Eve arrives, her younger sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), shows up from Los Angeles and disrupts the couple’s idyllic reunion. After a night out at a local club, Ava kills Ian, draining him of blood, and she is kicked out of the house by Adam. Adam and Eve dispose of Ian’s corpse. Ava’s impulsive behaviour cause Adam and Eve to have to leave Detroit, and hastily return to Tangier. Experiencing blood-withdrawal, the couple discover that their long time friend and mentor Marlowe has fallen ill due to a bad batch of blood. After a while, Marlowe dies in front of them. Running low on finances, and with no regular blood supply, the couple spot a pair of local young lovers kissing. Adam and Eve approach them, with their fangs out…
“Jim Jarmusch takes all the elegant longing, the romantic notability and insatiable moral questioning that had been sucked out of the vampire genre in recent years by faux-perilous teenage kitsch, and gives it back to us with Only Lovers Left Alive.” Eye For Film
“There is a lot that I loved about Only Lovers Left Alive, though I’ve no doubt that it’s not a film made to everyone’s taste. I might add that it’s barely a horror film, past the fact that it’s a story concerning vampires, but in some ways that’s apt. We’ve seen vampires done in many different ways and this might be as much a meditation on the vampire trope as it is a meditation on the ills of society and creative expression. All in all, it’s probably a film that gazes a little bit too much at its navel, but my, what an attractive navel it is.” Brutal As Hell
“For the first time in recent memory, a title has arrived that at least begins to scrape deeper in to the existential potential of vampire characters. Sadly, this brief glimpse squanders its value by otherwise wandering traveled ground. A certain momentum carries much of the first act of Only Lovers Left Alive, though this theoretically intriguing meander soon becomes the film’s ultimate downfall despite the involved talent. Jim Jarmusch does not intend to analyze questions but simply to put ideas out there, and as a result, his product ultimately feels lackadaisical and aimless.” Sound on Sight
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