Legendary hipster filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s wryly funny exercise in genre bending hits so many grace notes it ends up being his most satisfying film in years.
Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston have great chemistry as married-for-centuries vampires, currently living apart. Deciding her morose and reclusive musician spouse needs cheering up, the more upbeat Swinton flies in from Tangier to his home in Detroit, where the long undead-couple reminisce about the good old days (hanging out with Shelley and Byron), and take long drives at night through the desolate city.
They’re both aesthetes who prefer to procure blood from medical professionals rather than living victims, but a slight plot materializes when Swinton’s wayward younger sister (Mia Wasikowska) pops in unannouncd from LA and can’t keep her fangs off Hiddleston’s non-vampire factotum (Anton Yelchin).
Overlong and more than a bit self-smug, the nevertheless beguiling “Only Lovers Left Alive’’ winds its way to Tangier and a melancholy meeting with their mutual friend Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), another vampire who really did write Shakespeare’s plays back in the day.