Only Lovers Left Alive
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Year Released: 2013
Rating: 2.5
A vampiric rock star (Tom Hiddleston), depressed and reclusive (and living in decaying Detroit!), reunites with his soul-mate (Tilda Swinton) and, unfortunately, her reckless sister (Mia Wasikowska). Jarmusch is a very intelligent fellow and I commend him for using the current vampire craze for his own poetic ends - he's taking the 'vampire' motif to reflect on the current state of American industry and creating a parallel between a vampire's lust for blood and an addict's need for drugs (that Hiddleston and Swinton, strung-out and world-weary, end up in Tangiers of all places is not by accident). In making this more of a mood piece than an narrative, however, it tends to get a bit too complacent with itself, coasting on the feel of darkened rooms and nighttime dread and shaking itself (temporarily) awake with Wasikowska's character's careless behavior: it's a two-hour opium-induced haze.
