Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 film directed by Jim Jarmusch, and starring actors Tom Hiddleson and Tilda Swinton as the vampires Adam and Eve, respectively. The film centers around the two vampire lovers reuniting after spending years, if not decades, apart, after Eve notices that Adam, her husband, has become more withdrawn than usual. Life as a vampire in the 21st century is hard, as pollution has taken a toll on the blood supply, leaving the vampires isolated and wanting for non-contaminated blood. Adam, being a creative soul, has spent his life and unlife influencing creators and inventors, as he is normally very brooding and withdrawn, while Eve is naturally much more outgoing and free spirited. She brings a bit more “liveliness” into his life for a bit before Eve’s sister, Ava, comes crashing back into their lives with her addictive personality and drinks all of their stash of good blood. After Ava also ends up killing someone at a club by drinking all of their blood, Adam and Eve end up fleeing back to Eve’s home with the last bit of good blood left, contemplating their unlives and their love.

The film Only Lovers Left Alive is notable in terms of vampire media, for its depiction of a sympathetic vampire couple and the struggles they go through in their unlife. Adam’s long unlife and naturally very melancholic personality has left him struggling to find meaning in his life as it continues, something that is only balanced out by his wife, whose personality compliments and contrasts his personality perfectly. She is able to be that life and light he needs, and the distance has clearly, in part, left him struggling. Adam fits in with a lot of previous literature on vampires as he is very much a brooding, almost Byronic type, living an artistic life full of melancholy and listlessness as he tries to find purpose, something that he is only able to find fleetingly while he’s with Eve or working with someone else to inspire them to create. Eve, on the other hand, is more unique amongst vampires, especially those of the Victorian era, as she is full of life. She too spends her time around artists, but she clearly has more vivaciousness and excitement in her day to day when compared to her struggling artist husband. In the end, however, their lives are both turned upside down when Eve’s sister, Ava, who is a more classical representation of vampirism and it’s all consuming hunger and, sometimes, allegory for addiction, comes back into both of their lives. While Eve and Adam are not, themselves, destructive vampires, Only Lovers Left Alive does show that vampirism ultimately is self-destructive as Eve and Adam are left to contemplate their lives and what to do next once their blood supply is gone, leaning on each other to bring them love and comfort. While vampirism is destructive, it is the connections they make that bring them joy, something that is echoed when Adam takes interest in a new musician at the end of the film, giving the hope that, maybe, things will turn out for them.