Mini-Review: Only Lovers Left Alive

If most movies are analogous to plot driven novels, Jim Jarmusch’s latest is a character driven novel. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are excellent as the romantic, vampiric leads and one empathizes with their characters continual situation as artists in a world they see as dominated by zombies largely through the performance. Mia Wasikowska’s performance as the troublesome but youthful sister is also quite good, especially when compared with her more rigid performance in Stoker just prior. There are odd spots in the film, and Jarmusch remains a director that has distinctively rough spots in his films (some of the stilted dialogue in Ghost Dog comes to mind). The pacing mirrors the main characters reflections on art and perspective, but can be jarring or irking to those who want more traditional narrative film making. Jarmusch’s idiosyncratic tastes in pop culture and music do show up in the film, but this film does have a rich texture for most viewers to chew on once they adjust to this style of film making which is increasingly out of pace with even much “indie” system.

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