There’s a certain kind of dissolute beauty advertisers use to suggest that being a strung-out supermodel or junkie rock-star would be awesome, rather than grim. Those execs would sell their souls for a drop of what courses through Jim (Dead Man) Jarmusch’s latest indie – not to mention the veins of its vampire protagonists: pure, liquid cool.
With their ever-present sunglasses and up-all-night tans, Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are the picture of blissed-out, beautiful ruin, and two hours in their company makes you feel like you’ve been partying with history’s most legitimate (and least irritating) hipsters. They’re not trying to be Byron/Jim Morrison/James Dean (delete as appropriate); they’ve outlived all the legends to become the ultimate cultural connoisseurs: Swinton devouring books – and other things – in Tangier with John Hurt, while Hiddleston makes extraordinary snaking guitar sounds from his secret Detroit ghetto.
Bored of watching the travails of mankind (or “zombies”, as they call us) detachedly from the sidelines, Hiddleston wants out, but Swinton knows that this, too, will pass. She comes to America to comfort her paramour, and mostly the film is content to bask in their reflected glory, the camera swirling woozily around them as they recline in stoned satiety.
Neither a romance, nor a horror, although it has glowing moments of both, it’s a rich, witty mood piece you just have to sink into. Sometimes it feels like a gorgeous music video for the best band ever – Hiddleston, Swinton and John Hurt on drums. And you don’t get much cooler than that…
‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ Movie Times
