History Film / OnlyLoversLeftAlive

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Creator/ChristopherMarlowe is rather keen on not letting people know that he is an immortal vampire, and doesn't seem to care that much that Shakespeare took credit for plays he wrote. It's also implied that be based the character of Theatre/{{Hamlet}} on Adam.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Creator/ChristopherMarlowe is rather keen on not letting people know that he is an immortal vampire.

* CentralTheme: Love and beauty. The two main characters are "lovers" who are entangled with each other no matter where they go or how long they stay apart. They are characterized by their love of beauty, which they find in music, literature, science and even downtown Detroit.

* AntiHero: Adam and Eve are very lovely people, but [[spoiler:they show a notable lack of empathy over Ian's death.]]

* BlatantLies: Adam repeatedly claims that he doesn't have any heroes. This is in spite of having a large wall covered in portraits of artists and scientists who are clearly his heroes.

* InformedAbility: Adam is supposed to be a musical genius, but he plays very little in the film. The most we get is him creating an instrumental piece while Eve dances. We do get to hear much of his music played, however.

* GadgeteerGenius: Adam. His house and car run on generators he built himself based off Nikola Tesla's work (an old friend, you see). He and Eve use a lot of old-fashioned technology that Adam has jury-rigged to be quite advanced, such as video conferencing televisions that are so old they have knobs and an antenna.
* GilliganCut: Adam insists that he won't be taking Ava and Eve out anywhere. Cut to a concert.

* InformedAbility: Adam is supposed to be a musical genius, but he plays very little in the film. The most we get is him strumming a simple tune on a lute in the end.

** For some reason, Adam can''not'' fly to Tangiers via London.

* EternalLove: Adam and Eve have been married for at least 200 years, and are still madly in love with each other. It may or may not help that they seem to spend a fair amount of time living on opposite sides of the world.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They can appear on TV cameras, unlike traditional takes on vampires that have them not able to cast reflections or appear on film. They also [[VegetarianVampire dislike feeding on human hosts]], in part because it attracts undue attention but mostly because blood from living people tends to be too full of things that are toxic to vampires, like drugs (both prescription and not) and various toxins absorbed from the environment. One of the vampires becomes very ill and dies after drinking toxic blood. [[spoiler: Ava]] commits a serious ''faux pas'' by draining a living person. They also have the power of {{psychometry}} and wear gloves to contain it in public, and can give people psychic dreams. They can also move supernaturally fast if need be. They cannot go out into the light, and can be killed by being pierced by very dense woods.

* Really700YearsOld: While no exact ages are ever divulged, Adam is over 200 years old, while Eve clearly has several centuries on him.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They can appear on TV cameras, unlike traditional takes on vampires that have them not able to cast reflections or appear on film. They also [[VegetarianVampire dislike feeding on human hosts]], in part because it attracts undue attention but mostly because blood from living people tends to be too full of things that are toxic to vampires, like drugs (both prescription and not) and various toxins absorbed from the environment. One of the vampires becomes very ill and dies after drinking toxic blood. [[spoiler: Ava]] commits a serious ''faux pas'' by drinking the blood of a living person. They also have the power of {{psychometry}} and wear gloves to contain it in public, and can give people psychic dreams. They can also move supernaturally fast if need be. They cannot go out into the light, and can be killed by being pierced by very dense woods.

* RedEyesTakeWarning: The vampires' eyes become an eerie reddish-gold when their blood reserve runs dangerously low.

* InformedAbility: Adam is supposed to be a musical genius, but he plays very little in the film. The most we get is him strumming a simple toon on a lute in the end.

* HairContrastDuo: Creator/TomHiddleston as Adam [[Film/TheAvengers reprises]] his [[EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunet]] look, while Eve's hair is white-blond.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They can appear on TV cameras, unlike traditional takes on vampires that have them not able to cast reflections or appear on film. They also [[VegetarianVampire dislike feeding on human hosts]], in part because it attracts undue attention but mostly because blood from living people tends to be too full of things that are toxic to vampires, like drugs (both prescription and not) and various toxins absorbed from the environment. One of the vampires becomes very ill and dies after drinking toxic blood. [[spoiler: Ava]] commits a serious ''faux pas'' by drinking the blood of a living person. They also have the power of psychometry and wear gloves to contain it in public, and can give people psychic dreams. They can also move supernaturally fast if need be. They cannot go out into the light, and can be killed by being pierced by very dense woods.

* VampireInvitation: Ava enters Adam's apartment without permission and Eve tells her that it's bad luck to do so, although nothing bad happens to her.

** Adam's wall of portraits includes famous artists and scientists, including Creator/EdgarAllenPoe, Creator/WilliamShakespeare, Creator/PhilipMarlowe, and Creator/RodneyDangerfield.

** Adam and Even name-drop various famous people they've known, including Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Nikola Tesla, etc.

* ViewersAreGeniuses: Creator/ChristopherMarlowe turns out to have been a vampire all these centuries. Adam's assumed name when he buys blood from a hospital lab technician? [[Theatre/DoctorFaustus "Dr. Faust."]] He also gets called [[Film/TheCabinetofDrCaligari "Dr. Caligari"]] and [[Film/DrStrangelove "Dr. Strangelove"]] by the technician.
** Eve travels to Detroit under the name "Fibonacci," presumably as a tribute to the mathematician. When they travel to Tangier, it's as [[{{Literature/Ulysses}} Stephen Dedalus]] and [[Literature/TheGreatGatsby Daisy Buchanan]]

* VegetarianVampire: They prefer to buy blood from the hospital, though [[spoiler:they will feed on humans]] if they are desperate (or horny in Ava's case.)
** It should be noted that this preference seems to emerge not so much for moral reasons (as is usually the case), but because hospital blood is cleaner than the blood they could get out of a person who might have drugs, disease, or other impurities in their system, which can make the vampires sick or make the blood taste bad or give the vampires less of a high.

** Adam's bathroom has been 'out of order' for some time, and we never do see what's in there.[[note]]Most likely, Adam never needs to use it, and never bothers to repair it.[[/note]]

* InformedAbility: Adam is supposed to be a musical genius, but when played, it sounds like an emo teen noodling on his guitar.

* GadgeteerGenius: Adam. His house and car run on generators he built himself based off Nikola Tesla's work (an old friend, you see), and his version of Apple's [=FaceTime=] involves a lot of wires hooked to a TV so old it has knobs and an antenna.

* {{Hipster}} / ItsPopularNowItSucks: [[invoked]] One can get this impression from these vampires' attitudes.

* CentralTheme: One of them is ItsPopularNowItSucks, though it's also colored by the fact that Adam and Eve have become so insular that they have lost interest in communicating with the world at large.

** The entire film is a metaphor for art. The "zombies" are only interested in the fast food equivalent of music in the film, while the "lovers" have a deep appreciation for music as a whole. Even Marlowe, who in the film is the real author of Shakespeare's plays (as some suspect these days), is a representation of people appreciating those plays on a surface level, when there's deeper meaning to them, as he states.

*** In reality, the blood is their substitute for ''sex'', since they're unable to have physical encounters. Even Ava, who is treated like she ReallyGetsAround, can only experience orgasmic pleasure [[spoiler: by draining Ian]].

** It's quite explicit that they get sexual pleasure from drinking blood. Observe the scene in which Adam, Eve and Marlowe drink blood. [[spoiler: Ava drains Ian, and it's implied she's a SerialKiller because she ReallyGetsAround.]]

* InformedAbility: Adam is supposed to be a musical genius, but when played, it sounds like an emo teen noodling on his guitar. {{YMMV}}, of course.