Only Lovers Left Alive

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Post-“Twilight,” savvy auteurs have been gradually reclaiming the vampire flick from its longstanding YA decline, making bloodsuckers into elegant badasses instead of mere objects for teenage desire. The shift was seen last year in “Kiss of the Damned” and “Byzantium,” and it hits a hard-to-top pinnacle with “Only Lovers Left Alive,” a gorgeously literate, rocker-vamp romance from Jim Jarmusch. The brilliantly paired Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton play spouses Adam and Eve, who’ve survived centuries together and become more well-read and culturally astute than any of us could hope to be.

It’s hugely commendable that, beyond infusing the story with a rock groove that bolsters tone and character (Adam is a beloved musician hiding out in dilapidated Detroit), Jarmusch carefully considers how living through many ages would affect those thirsty not just for blood, but knowledge and artistic enrichment. It’s amusing indeed that Eve’s friend Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt) wrote all of Shakespeare’s best work, but Jarmusch isn’t boxed in by punch lines.

Nor is he insistent on keeping Adam and Eve’s influences in the past. Name-checked by the couple is everyone from Newton to Darwin (each of whom they knew or admired), but there’s also Jack White, whose childhood Detroit home Eve ogles with awe. Since they’ve seen so many icons come and go, it’s as if we can trust their taste in regard to who will endure. And why not put White in the company of Pythagoras?

Though a quasi-suicidal Adam regularly shares his disdain for humans (or “zombies,” as he calls us), he and his mate prove to be, in a sense, the writers and carriers of humanity’s history book, knowing where we’ve been and where we’re going, and maintaining an outsider’s perspective despite living among us. (“Has the war over water started yet?” Adam asks Eve.) From casting to craftsmanship, Jarmusch turns this groovy, mid-tempo story into its own form of enrichment. It’s not just the coolest movie of the vampire renaissance; it’s the coolest vampire movie ever.

Only Lovers Left Alive

R
Four reels out of four
Opens tomorrow at area theaters

Recommended Rental

Labor Day

PG-13
Available Tuesday

Though it earned director Jason Reitman the poorest reviews of his career, and suffers from too much bathos once it nears its end, the atmospheric melodrama “Labor Day” shouldn’t be briskly dismissed. Solidly acted by Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and young Gattlin Griffith, the coming-of-age-cum-love-story presents a complex take on the Stockholm Syndrome scenario, and features Reitman’s welcome attention to everyday details. A pie-baking scene alone is worth the rental. 

Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.

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