Only Lovers Left Alive ** (R) Of all the vampire movies I can recall, this is the blandest and bleakest. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston have been lovers, if not soul(less)mates for centuries, though living continents apart as the film opens. She’s hanging out with Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt) - yes, the famous literary one - in North Africa, while he’s writing music in Detroit. Both are maintaining low profiles, trying to sustain themselves on black-market blood from shady medical sources, rather than sink their fangs into the living.
Actually, there are two reasons for this covert feeding policy. In their post-semi-apocalyptic world, rampant pollution and disease have left what’s left of humanity extremely short on potable water, and riddled with some sort of blood toxicity that’s even fatal to vamps. They call regular mortals zombies. These Children of the Night are rather short on powers, compared to most of their cinematic predecessors. Hand speed seems to be about the extent of it. When Swinton’s free-spirited kid sister (Mia Wasikowska) breezes in from Los Angeles just after the two have reunited in the desolate remnants of Motor City, problems begin.
The most interesting and amusing element of the screenplay centers on Marlowe’s having been the real Shakespeare. But that’s essentially in the margins, as Hiddleston flirts with suicide, finding little joy in his existence, or hope for a more satisfying future. Swinton is always fascinating to observe; her slender frame, pallid complexion and quiet bearing make casting her as a vampire somewhere between natural and inevitable. But there’s so little contextual substance to anchor the proceedings that their tale may seem as drab to the viewers as to the world-weary songwriter at its core. (5/2/14)