| Setting off to see this film, I had a feeling it would be a struggle having seen the trailers which looked pretty slow and potentially obscure, one of these arthouse films where they don’t really want you to understand what’s happening.
But lo and behold, I was quite wrong, it was distinctive, fun, engrossing and intriguing, even though it wasn’t exactly plot-heavy.
Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) are husband and wife, though he lives in Detroit and she in Tangiers. They are both vampires, and have been alive for hundreds of years. So is Christopher Marlowe (yes, that one) who also lives in Tangiers and helps Eve get her blood (ie to drink). Adam gets his from a nearby hospital where he has a contact.
Adam is a pretty morose character, with a love of music (genre: vampire rock) and he also collects vintage guitars – it’s about the only thing he enthuses over, though he is happy when Eve comes to spend time with him. He gets his guitars and anything else he wants from likeable Ian, a non-vampre.
Adam and Eve move and talk slowly – what’s the hurry when life is so long. They go on drives at night through Detroit, which looks a very suitably desolate place for vampires to live.
Things liven up when Adam’s sister Ava arrives. She’s a bit of a loose cannon in the vampire world though Ian is intrigued by her (rather to his detriment).
I loved the deadpan duo, the music was at least atmospheric, and I hoped that Adam would not use the wooden bullet he had ordered to put himself out of his misery. For some reason I had always assumed Jim Jarmusch was a bit of an inaccessible filmmaker, but after this I will try some more.
I only have a limited number of genres to choose to put the film in so I have chosen comedy. It’s a fair bit more than that though.
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