Indie director Jim Jarmusch makes swooning odysseys and in this one – his twelfth - Tilda Swinton plays a vampire called Eve. The latter has the kind of wardrobe Brian Jones would have killed for. She also has a mane of white hair, is super-English, massively erudite and obsessed with the past. Imagine a hipster version of Mary Beard.
Based in Tangier, Eve wants to reinvigorate her toy-boy, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) - a new-wave musician who's moping in Detroit. The couple enjoy the best blood that money can buy, which they consume (in their respective abodes) like blissed-out junkies. The big question is whether they can share a climax. When Eve arrives in Detroit, and asks Adam to join her in a dance, (to Denise LaSalle's R&B classic, Trapped By A Thing Called Love), your skin prickles with anticipation.
Now I'm not usually a big Jarmusch fan and OLLA didn't wholly convert me. Working from his own script, Jarmusch pursues all sorts of lofty themes (pollution; DIY survival; genius) yet, because his dialogue mostly consists of carping, or quipping, fresh insights are rare. The film implies that scientists and artists are part of a tortured aristocracy. A brilliant idea that, unfortunately, crumbles if you think about it for longer than one second. Family dysfunction is also explored, with the lovely Mia Wasikowska popping up, as Eve's flirtatious kid sister. Back in 1946, The Big Sleep covered this angle with far more perversity. What we get, here, is a frothy gothic soap.
Still, whenever Jarmusch lets his soundtrack - and his stars - do the talking, the right notes get struck. At a club, Adam is wound-up, to the point of implosion, by the sight of records being exchanged. And, even in bed, asleep, he and Eve look like they're vogueing. Perfection-seekers, it seems, can never relax. Meanwhile, the final scenes recall those of Tomas Alfredson's Let The Right One In. Using their combined - and o so intelligent - charisma, Swinton and Hiddleston manage to suggest that all couplings are predicated on exploitation and insatiable need. You can feel the defiant sadness in their bones.
Eve's gimlet eyes are especially compelling (she tells Adam, “I'm a survivor, baby”, and it's all too easy to believe). White-haired women are a lesser-spotted breed at the movies. And ones as deliciously eccentric as Eve just don't exist. Let's hope she's the first of many.
