Only Lovers Left Alive

A teasing riff on his own relationship with partner and fellow film-maker Sara Driver, Jim Jarmusch's laconic vision of vampirism is suffused with wry wit and soulful melancholy. Centuries-old Eve (Tilda Swinton) leaves an undead Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt) in Tangier to check on her husband Adam (Tom Hiddleston) in the Detroit garret where he makes dirge-like rock music and despairs of the "zombie" humans who have messed up the world. He contemplates ending it all with a wooden bullet procured by his gauche factotum (Anton Yelchin) while Eve tries to raise his spirits, but her task is complicated by the arrival of her minxish little sister (Mia Wasikowska). Dripping with punk nostalgia and tinged with heroin chic, this is a work of sly revisionism as well as a lament for dying art and once bohemian cities. Jokes about Shakespeare and Schubert epitomise the knowing humour while impeccable visuals and eclectic music reinforce the dark atmosphere. But it's the quirkily contrasting performances that give heart to Jarmusch's achingly hip musings on immortality.