REVIEW Only Lovers Left Alive A Vampire Duo to Die For
Now that Alain Resnais has died, Jim Jarmusch should inherit the title of Major Auteur With the Coolest Hair. A snow-white mop with a wild streak and neat sideburns ending at the earlobes, his coiffure could be the snug hat for a Russian princess. Jarmusch, 61, is pretty hip too. A writer-director of truly, incorrigibly independent films  not "indie," which he's said "has been usurped as a marketing device"  he is also one of three members of the music project SQRL, which he describes as "an enthusiastically marginal rock band from New York City who like big drums  broken guitars, cassette recorders, loops, feedback, sad country songs, molten stoner core, chopped  screwed hip-hop, and imaginary movie scores.", So there might be a dab of self-portraiture in the character of Adam Tom Hiddleston  a retired rock star with fabulous hair and a love for all things classic  in Jarmusch's divinely decadent Only Lovers Left Alive. Adam dwells in seclusion in his louche Detroit mansion, buys vintage electric guitars from his friend Ian Anton Yelchin and gets his drug of choice from the local hospital's helpful "Dr. Watson" Jeffrey Wright. His glamorous wife Eve Tilda Swinton often visits him from her home in far-off Tangier to rekindle their longtime love. Looking great for their advanced age, Adam and Eve are handsome, swank and in love. They're also vampires. READ Inside the unique world of Jim Jarmusch, For a director who has delved into the preternatural and postmortem in Mystery Train, Dead Man and Ghost Dog The Way of the Samurai, it might be a mission of mercy to rescue the creatures of the night from the teen vamps of The Twilight Saga and Warm Bodies. But Only Lovers Left Live is also, and mainly a romance about, sexy old people. At least 2,000 years old Adam and Eve are bimillennarians, and then some. Could they be the original Adam and Eve? If so, in this retelling of Genesis, the first family is undead and the bloodline has been sadly diluted. Vampires are the elite, a chic minority in a world overrun by zombie rabble Ian is one of those, nicer than most but considerably subordinate in power and majesty to Adam.