Review of Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) by Liam C — 31 Aug 2014

I'm surprised the reviews are as high as they are, I thought this would be quite a polarising film for quite a lot of people just because of how experimental and free flowing it is but then again, that might be why they love it, like I am about to mention.

This is quite a weird entity because it appears to be about quite a lot of things but then is really about nothing at all. There are synopsis' on movie websites of what this film is about but I would be hard pressed to give a concrete answer as to what the story was. It has plot threads weave so naturally in and out that this just becomes more of an experience than anything else. While at times it was annoying to not really have any major plot point to grab onto I still felt myself being entranced by the film; I was in it's world, which is an excellent feat. This is due to the excellent performances from everybody involved, beautiful cinematography, great music and brilliant atmosphere.

The film was indeed very slow but the time really did fly by, at least for most of it, and it was just interesting to see what would happen next and where things would go. Especially because we just jump into these characters lives and the 'in' vampire jokes they make really make it feel all the more real, like they really have been living for a very long time. A complaint I had about the story is that it would set up some serious scenes like a characters unexpected death and it would be a big, serious scene but after about 10 minutes it's just dealt with and that's that and never addressed again. Also like a major characters departure, they were built up quite a lot, they arrive and then they just leave and they aren't mentioned again like they never existed and they are the one that is mentioned a lot on website synopsis'.

Although I liked it more than I didn't, I can't ignore the fact that for the last 30 minutes or so I was checking my watch quite often, the film started to feel a little self indulgent near the end and I felt my liking for it just draining away. It looked like the film ran out of ideas and just kept going for some reason, the film was really long, especially for what it was trying to do, which really is not much of anything. However the final shot is some unexpected nightmare fuel if I ever saw it, even if I coincidentally predicted it somehow.

I liked this and didn't feel like I had my time wasted, a little slow in spots but overall it is just a laid back, cool, entrancing, strange and assuredly offbeat vampire film with great performances, music and fabulous hair.