Entertainment
Tom Hiddleston’s Vampire Movie With Tom Holland Is Guaranteed To Break Your Heart
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Even if you love vampire movies like a good little child of the night, it can be difficult to find a modern film featuring these monsters that doesn’t, well, suck. A few years ago, though, we got a heartbreaking vampire drama from an iconic indie director, one that started two Marvel icons. The movie in question is Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), and you can now stream this underappreciated Tom Hiddleston/Tilda Swinton classic for free on Tubi.
The premise of Only Lovers Left Alive is that two vampires who have been married for centuries now live two very different lives on opposite sides of the world. However, dark, destructive ennui has begun to take hold in Tom Hiddleston’s character, and he’s pondering shuffling off the mortal coil of a world he has grown increasingly tired of. Tilda Swinton’s character comes to help him find the joy diminished by years of empty existence, but whether she succeeds will come down to how much they can rekindle the passion that originally brought them together.
A Cast Of Undead Excellence
The cast of Only Lovers Left Alive includes some major genre names, including Tom Holland (best known for playing Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). It also includes Jeffrey Wright (best known for The Batman) and the late, great Anton Yelchin (best known for the Star Trek reboot). It even includes the legendary John Hurt (best known for Alien) who, in an inspired bit of casting, plays William Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe.
Mostly, though, Only Lovers Left Alive revolves around Tom Hiddleston (best known for The Avengers) and Tilda Swinton (best known for We Need To Talk About Kevin). Each of them individually does an excellent job of portraying a supernatural creature who is at once both more and less than human, and their natural chemistry helps lend this movie its passion and its pathos. Trust me: if you’re only used to these actors in Marvel movies, seeing them in a heartbreaking indie where they get to chew scenery as they see fit is quite the revelation.
Dead And Not Loving It
When Only Lovers Left Alive premiered, it didn’t make the box office feel all that likely. Against a budget of $7 million, the film only earned $7.9 million; however, it received a surprising amount of acclaim despite lackluster earnings: for example, it was nominated for the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Festival, and it rightfully took home that prestigious film festival’s award for Best Soundtrack. Seriously, this combination of the director’s favorite songs and his own band’s score helps give this quirky classic a surprisingly authentic and almost shockingly autobiographical vibe.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it was completely different from other vampire media, Only Lovers Left Alive cast quite a hypnotic spell on everyone who saw it. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an 86 percent, with critics praising director Jim Jarmusch for pumping some new blood into a genre that felt drained long ago. They also singled out Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton for giving performances that effortlessly pivot from heartbreaking pathos to gallows humor and back again, fully selling us on the unexpected treaties and quiet triumphs that come from a love that can literally never end.
Who Wants To Live Forever?
Now, here’s the rare admission from a critic: I had to watch Only Lovers Left Alive twice before I really understood and appreciated it. The first time, the movie felt a little too slow for me, and it clashed with my expectations of a genre tale full of blood and betrayal. On the second watch, though, I realized that the movie was all about answering the question first put forth by Queen all those decades ago: “who wants to live forever?”
While it makes for a tear-jerking watch at times (it’s not a question of if you’ll cry but when), Only Lovers Left Alive very provocatively asks what eternal love looks like for a man and a wife who can never die. How does that transform the traditional wedding promise of “till death do us part,” and how do you keep a spark alive when the weight of untold eons weighs on your chest like the rock of ages? For anyone who has ever loved someone with their whole heart, Only Lovers Left Alive forces you to consider how you might sustain that passion over the centuries and what its sudden absence could mean for both you and your relationship.
A Monstrous Mirror
In this way, Jim Jarmusch created a vampire movie that isn’t really a vampire movie; rather, its supernatural protagonists are metaphors for the monstrous urges and creeping loneliness that threaten to tear even the strongest unions apart. It’s not exactly a scary movie, especially for those hoping to see plenty of blood, gore, and other staples of monster movie mayhem. But in holding up an unflinching reflection to both the impermanence of passion and the undying fire of true love, this may be the scariest vampire movie of them all.
Will you agree that Only Lovers Left Alive is slow-burn genre perfection, or is this one vampy movie you’d rather drive a stake into? The only way to find out is to stream it for free on Tubi today. Come for the Marvel stars and stay for the eye-opening meditations on life, love, and the forbidden attraction of death!
ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE REVIEW SCORE