Only Lovers Left Alive

More vampires? Eurgh, no thanks. From the hordes of mournful teenage biters that have been so fashionable of late, to the stroppy decapitators in all those ultra-violent horror movies, I was so bored of vampires before I saw this film that I didn’t think I could stomach another one. And then I fell in love with them again, like a 13-year-old handed the Twilight novels for the very first time.

With this love story, Jim Jarmusch, a director who specialises in low-key, laid-back films, is at his low-key and laid-back best. Even the inclusion of vampires is terribly, terribly casual. If you squint a little, you could watch most of the film thinking it’s about wine connoisseurs who travel a lot.

Jarmusch’s vampires, the coyly named Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), have been married for so long they keep getting remarried for the fun of it. Their love is so secure that they live on separate continents. Eve lives in Tangier and buys blood from her best friend, the long-bitten playwright Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), which is drunk in small measures from exquisitely cut glasses. All they have to fear is bad blood, and ennui, which unfortunately hits Adam, a massively successful musician-turned-recluse, living off-grid in the broken hub of Detroit.

Eve flies out to join him – and their reunion is intoxicating to watch. Even when they are talking on the phone it’s clear Hiddleston and Swinton should have been paired together years ago. Physically and emotionally, the 20-year age gap is unnoticeable – how is Swinton possibly 53? Their chemistry is wonderful, conveying the lust, love and confidence of a longterm couple who know each other inside out. They are affectionate, wry, and funny.

It’s strange that you have to turn to a vampire film to find a depiction of a screen couple who just get each other. It’s refreshing to step out of Hollywood’s tropes, to not to have one person or the other nagging or having a strop. Jarmusch’s slow pace works perfectly because you grow to love spending time with Adam and Eve. It’s like hanging out with your favourite couple, albeit ones who are insanely intelligent and good-looking, and who dress like Vogue cover models.

All is bliss until Eve’s spoilt sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowski), tracks them down for a visit. Wasikowski, so fabulous in Alice In Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right, and recently so British in Jane Eyre, makes the hideous Ava a real treat, waking them up like a bored toddler, pinching the O negative painstakingly obtained by Adam through a hospital doctor, and chatting up Adam’s go-to human.

In fact, everyone involved is at the top of their game. We might not get much of John Hurt, but he is beautiful backing to Adam and Eve’s enchanting ballet. And then there’s the style: clipped English accents, the wearing of gloves, the use of ‘My Lady’ and ‘My liege Lord’ – gorgeous.

Romantic, funny, incredibly English – this is a film worth waiting for. It just happens to contain vampires.