Tag: Mia Wasikowska

Review: Only Lovers Left Alive

Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton languish in their immortality in Jim Jarmusch’s brooding, art-house take on the vampire craze.

For Adam and Eve, time does not pass, but lingers. With their pale faces and long, slender limbs draped in voluminous robes made from dark, heavy cloths, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) present a perversely beautiful twist on their biblical namesakes. This is a movie about vampires, but it has nothing to do with the vampires that have come to dominate pop culture in the last decade. Instead, “Only Lovers Left Alive,” the latest from eccentric director Jim Jarmusch, aims to capture a moment and a mood, a world of heavy curtains, yellow light, and enduring night.

Adam and Eve are vampires who have passed the long years of their existence befriending, inspiring, and in some cases, creating for history’s greatest artists. From Shakespeare to Schubert to Tesla, the litany of names mentioned is like a parade through the annals of western civilization. Though they cannot live without each other, they live apart. Adam makes his home on the outskirts of an abandoned Detroit, composing music and feeding off blood supplied by a doctor happy to take money without asking questions. Eve, on the other hand, resides in Tangier, where she spends her nights reading books of all languages and chatting with Christopher Marlowe, a member of the undead still smarting over Shakespeare’s plagiarism. 

Disgusted with the human race, Adam contemplates suicide, leading Eve to come visit and cheer him up.  Reunited, the happy couple play chess, eat popsicles, and go for long drives at night—the picture of blissful domesticity—until Eve’s sister, the reckless Ava (Mia Wasikowska) suddenly appears. This all makes the film sound much more dramatic than it feels, however, and while there is plenty of action to drive the story forward, Jarmusch is not interested in the plot so much as in his vision—the characters, the artistic sensibility they espouse, the timelessness they exude, and the striking images they present.

“Only Lovers” could easily have been a collection of striking, atmospheric images peppered with literary references and connected by a flimsy story—were it not for the performances of its two lead actors. Jarmusch (or his casting directors) deserve a prize just for choosing Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton (can we please call them Tiddleston?) to be vampire lovers. As strange as the pairing seems on paper, it is perfect for this movie. Graceful and ethereal, Swinton and Hiddleston seem hewn from the same form. They lean upon each other with the comfort and ease honed by centuries of companionship, and yet they maintain a strange chemistry. Swinton remains one of the most enigmatic actors working in movies today, and as Eve she seems to carry the wisdom of the world in her eyes. Hiddleston proves to be her equal, and manages to bring levity and wit to a character who primarily broods and sulks. For large stretches of the movie, it’s enough to just watch Adam and Eve be.

While much has been made of Jarmusch’s attitudes towards art—Adam spends much of his time lamenting the “zombie” state of the human race—what was striking in this movie about immortals was the proximity of death. It is only natural that one extreme evokes the other, but the hint of death hangs over the entire movie. Adam contemplates suicide, he and Eve are not opposed to taking lives when no other feeding options present themselves, and they themselves can be poisoned by the blood they feed upon.

In one scene, Adam and Eve toss a corpse into a pool of acid and watch it dissolve. The body disappears into the water, but for a moment the skull bobs stubbornly up and down. Even if the movie hadn’t mentioned Shakespeare multiple times already—including identifying Adam as a prototype for Hamlet—the Prince of Denmark would still have come to mind. As Eve pauses to gaze at the portraits hung on Adam’s wall, the gallery of literati they’ve known through the years, the overwhelming sense is that they have all gone while Adam and Eve remain. They are indeed the only lovers left alive.

Now playing in theaters.

Verdict: 3 1/2 out of 4 stars

Trailers of the Week: The Tower

Gone Girl

David Fincher’s last effort, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” felt mostly like the director was running in place – a genre exercise to keep him in shape, and not a whole lot else (Rooney Mara’s scathing performance as Lisbeth Salander was unfortunately balanced out by Daniel Craig sleepwalking his way through the entire film). Gillian Flynn’s thriller “Gone Girl” has a little more going for it, thematically: marital strife in hard economic times, ravenous media, dishonesty. The casting is also intriguing, with Ben Affleck continuing his efforts to reinvent and reinvigorate his place as one of Hollywood’s big-name leading men, and Rosamund Pike finally in a high-profile role worthy of her talent. This trailer is as stylish and intriguing as we’ve come to expect from Fincher projects (remember that phenomenal campaign for “The Social Network?”), but am I the only one getting a little bored of the same old shadowy aesthetic? I want to buy Jeff Cronenweth a nice standing lamp.

A Most Wanted Man

This year’s Sundance festival was generally perceived as a little lackluster (witness, no Sundance selection made it to Cannes’ Un Certain Regard this year, breaking with a sort of unofficial tradition of recent years). But one of the few consensus standouts was Anton Corbijn’s adaptation of John le Carré’s “A Most Wanted Man,” and in particular Philip Seymour Hoffman’s lead performance as weary German intelligence agent Günther Bachmann. It is continually sobering to know this will be one of our last chances to see Hoffman on the big screen, but it’s obvious even from this brief look that he will be as phenomenal as he ever was. He’s a perfect fit for a le Carré lead – dedicated, unglamorous, the definition of a slow burn.

Corbijn also seems a good fit for the material, coming off the heels of “The American,” another contemporary spy thriller that suffered only from a bit of a half-baked narrative. That shouldn’t be a problem here with le Carré at hand, and Corbijn’s controlled, precise style is an appropriate way to visualize a world where one false step has dire consequences. This one’s high on my most anticipated titles of the year.

Maps to the Stars

I just…I’m not even sure…what?

The Homesman

As with the above David Cronenberg nut-fest, Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Homesman” will premiere on the Croisette in May. And I’m not the most objective source here, considering my irrational fondness for all things frontier, but I love everything about this trailer. I love the concept. I love Tommy Lee Jones in this role, and even Hilary Swank, who’s been far too fond of baity prestige pieces of late, seems suited to her part. I love the ensemble, with interesting character actors like Tim Blake Nelson, John Lithgow, David Dencik, Jesse Plemons, and let’s not forget Meryl, filling out the cast. I love “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” I love Kelly Reichardt’s “Meek’s Cutoff,” which has a lot of this particular flavor of homestead isolation. I’m all in.

The Rover

And of course, the only thing better than an American frontier Western is a post-apocalyptic future Australian Outback Western! I’m not entirely sure what accent Robert Pattinson thinks he’s doing, but Guy Pearce was terrific in “The Proposition” and he seems to be tapping into that same vein of TERRIFYING here. I’ve never seen David Michod’s “Animal Kingdom,” which was a surprise critical hit back in 2010, earning Jacki Weaver her first Oscar nomination and putting Joel Edgerton on the map. It’s certainly on my priority list to catch up with before “The Rover” debuts out of competition at a midnight screening at Cannes next month.

Trailers of the Week: No, You’re Not on Drugs, Jared Leto is Back

Dallas Buyers Club

“Dallas Buyers Clubs” has been lurking on the circuit for a while, as critics and viewers waited to see whether the film would be just another notch in Matthew McConaughey’s continued career resurrection or a complete package. Rave reviews out of Toronto has everyone leaning towards the latter, with everyone insisting that the true-life tale of homophobe-turned-HIV-patient-turned-drug-smuggler Ron Woodroof is not just a baity performance piece but a genuinely touching account of redemption and survival. McConaughey’s scary physical transformation sure seems to be matched by an emotional dedication to the character – it seems like the whole key to his sudden rebirth has been that he’s started picking out roles that he can genuinely invest in, and good for him. This season’s Best Actor race is a tight field already, but factor in all the good vibes for his career turn-around and a nomination’s all but assured.

We don’t get to see as much as him, but I should think Jared Leto’s also a pretty safe bet. I don’t see how the Academy resists an actor playing an HIV-positive transgender woman (see: Felicity Huffman in “Transamerica,” Jaye Davidson in “The Crying Game”). The film itself sure looks to tug at the heartstrings – but as is always the question with these prestige pics, can it do so without feeling manipulative?

Mr. Nobody

Speaking of resurrections, apparently we’ve decided to give this whole “Jared Leto acting” thing another shot. Although, the circumstances behind “Mr. Nobody” are a bit odd –  it debuted in 2009 at the Venice and Toronto festivals to overwhelmingly favorable reviews (and even some raves) and earned a release in Europe, but for no discernible reason didn’t get American distribution until this year. Considering its level of acclaim and fair share of recognizable Hollywood actors, that’s really inexplicable. But no matter – “Mr. Nobody” looks to satisfy those who were frustrated by the bombast of “Cloud Atlas” with a smaller-scale sci-fi investigation of the way our choices resonate across our lifetimes (devoted readers might recall that I thought the pure bombast was actually the only thing keeping “Cloud Atlas” afloat, but sure, let’s try again).

Kill Your Darlings

The trailer for this Sundance favorite is a bit disjointed, but somewhere in there’s a moody depiction of Beatnik-era New York – and the plethora of intriguing young acting talent is certainly enough to keep an eye on this one. Daniel Radcliffe is on a mission to leave his Harry Potter days behind him, and he might just do it – I’m actually starting to think he might end up with the best career of that whole bunch, although Emma Watson was pretty spectacular in “The Bling Ring”. But he certainly seems to challenge himself with his roles more than Watson does – there’s no real consistent through-line from Harry Potter to “Equus” to Broadway musicals to young Allen Ginsburg, but there he goes. Meanwhile, Dane DeHaan was basically the best part of Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines” – keep an eye on this guy. Ben Foster I’m always happy to see, and he should have plenty of fun with the eccentric William S. Burroughs. Jack Huston (as Jack Kerouac), Michael C. Hall, Elizabeth Olsen, Jennifer Jason Leigh – a tremendous cast all around and a fascinating true story that I personally know nothing about.

The Double

I couldn’t quite decide how I felt about Richard Ayoade’s debut film “Submarine” – an odd little coming-of-age film that felt like Wes Anderson filtered through Mike Leigh. But I love love love this brief but very atmospheric look at his follow-up feature, an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s short story with pitch-perfect casting on paper. Jesse Eisenberg plays the dual lead role of a nebbishy office worker who starts to be replaced by a charismatic, asshole doppelganger that no one seems to notice looks exactly like him. That’s basically an ideal personality split for Eisenberg, who combined both halves so well in “The Social Network.” Mia Wasikowska also strikes me as a great fit for one of Dostoevsky’s idealized, sweet but distant romantic objects. The film has gotten solid reviews out of Toronto, but as a Russian literature lover this one will be a priority for me.

Escape from Tomorrow

So this one needs some explanation. “Escape from Tomorrow” was filmed, astoundingly, almost entirely on location inside both Disney World and Disneyland. And director Randy Moore did it all without the company’s permission. As you can imagine, it’s unlikely that Disney Studios would be too thrilled about a fantasy-horror flick criticizing the soul-sucking insanity of its own ubiquitous entertainment, so the entire production was cloaked in secrecy, right up until the film’s furtive debut at Sundance. Critics found the film uneven in execution (rather unsurprising, considering the technical limits of such guerilla filmmaking) but obviously fascinating if only as an artifact – this is a movie that really shouldn’t exist. And most people assumed that would be the end of that; surely Disney would never let the movie actual secure distribution and see the light of day.

Yet here it is, with a limited release slated for Oct. 11, and still Disney’s lawyers sit silently. Considering the company’s history of tightly controlling the image of its copyrighted material, this is staggering. Do they think Moore’s film would hold up as critical commentary under the fair use exception of copyright law? What about trademark infringement? Or the violation of Disneyland’s clear terms of use, which prohibits filming?

It’s possible that they think, in fact, that legal action would just bring unwanted attention to the film, and would prefer to just let it fade away in limited release. So pass the word around – I want everyone to start talking about this movie, if only to see what the hell Disney does next. Should make for fascinating discussion in my copyright class.