Director: Jim Jarmusch; Screenwriter: Jim Jarmusch; Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, John Hurt, Anton Yelchin; Running time: 123 mins; Certificate: TBC

preview for 'Only Lovers Left Alive' preview clip

Jim Jarmusch's independent films often provide a refreshing antidote to the formulaic tripe peddled by Hollywood studios. But while difference can be virtuous, it doesn't always make for absorbing viewing - as highlighted by the languid vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive.

Shunning the overfamiliar conventions of the blood-sucking subgenre, Jarmusch's movie is admirably bereft of crucifixes, garlic and stakes through the heart. Instead, the focus is on the domestic affairs of vampires Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) as they rekindle their centuries-old love affair, try to stock up on fresh blood from various benefactors and generally skulk around in silence. The unwelcome entrance of Eve's hedonistic younger sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) throws their world into turmoil, and briefly helps to rouse a flagging interest in proceedings too.

The problem is that both lead characters are interminably dull, with the camera's gaze repeatedly dwelling on their mundane private moments and imploring us to be intrigued. As with every review ever written, it's an entirely subjective reception. Some may connect with or be intrigued by the coupling, but others are entitled to feel alienation and a lack of engagement with the characters, under-explored themes about our 'zombified' society and the largely incident-free movie as a whole.

It feels almost sacrilegious to say that, such is the esteem that Jarmusch is rightly held in. But his greatest strengths as an auteur - unhurried pacing and minimalist storytelling - ultimately prove a hindrance to one's enjoyment of Only Lovers Left Alive given the nature of Adam and Eve. They belong in the Garden of Boredom.

The pared down artistic approach worked so well in the director's films like Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (adapted from Jean-Pierre Melville's mesmerising masterpiece Le Samouraï), which merged form and content while generating great intrigue in Forest Whitaker's lone wolf assassin. But Only Lovers Left Alive lacks sufficient substance to match the style.

The performances from the cast are all solid and vastly superior to the material. Tilda Swinton is eminently ethereal as Eve, while Tom Hiddleston showcases an excellent comic touch as the depressed musician Adam. His nihilistic, deadpan quips hark back to Richard E Grant's marvellous turn as the caustic thespian in Withnail & I.

Jarmusch's lens captures them well on occasion - especially with one striking shot in the bedroom of their bare limbs entangled in the post-coital period. The cinematography is also impressive at times, with night-time Detroit exuding an evocative air of melancholia.

That visceral bleakness is frequently matched by the despondency caused by the predominantly lifeless narrative. Like vampires have a strong craving for blood, we endure a hunger for more narrative flesh to sink our fangs into during an arduous two hours only sporadically lightened by arresting imagery and Hiddleston's humour.

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Photo gallery - BFI London Film Festival 2013:BFI London Film Festival 2013