Steve Coogan’s television character—a self-absorbed radio DJ blissfully unaware of his abrasiveness and shocked that anyone should take offense at it—is far better known in Britain than in America, but Alan Partridge makes the transition to the big screen in a form that anybody can enjoy, whether you’re already a fan of the TV sketches or not.

Coogan has been playing Partridge on the tube for more than twenty years, over which the character’s career path included highs (as host of a national talk show) and lows (his descent to position on a local station in Norwich, his hometown). That’s where he’s found at the start of the movie, co-hosting a morning mix of music and chatter with his sidekick Simon (Tim Key). The takeover of the station by a media conglomerate leads him to barge into a meeting of the new executives, where he intends to plead for them to keep on his old-fashioned colleague Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney), who’s nervous about his future. But suddenly confronted by the fact that he might get sacked himself, Alan urges them to dump Farrell instead.

Pat, who’s already depressed over the death of his wife, responds by taking over the station with a gun and holding the new owner (Nigel Lindsay) and an assortment of other workers hostage. The only person he’ll talk to is Alan, whom he still presumes to be his buddy and protector. So the cops who have surrounded the building reluctantly send in the loquacious DJ to serve as mediator and persuade Pat to release his prisoners and surrender. Alan’s initially distressed at the thought of being thrust into the position of would-be hero, but he gradually perceives the possibility of using the episode to enhance his public standing and perhaps reinvigorate his stalled career—a move that distresses his incredibly loyal but religiously-motivated assistant Lynn (Felicity Montagu). In the process Alan resumes chummy status with Pat, with whom he goes on the air even while poor Simon is stuck wearing an aluminum-foil cap into which Farrell’s rifle stuck, pointed at his head.

Of course things deteriorate further from there, especially after Partridge and Farrell take their act on the road in the station’s old broadcasting RV and Pat finds out that far from trying to save his job, Partridge had sold him out. Eventually the two men wind up on a boardwalk on the Norfolk Coast, with Pat still wielding the shotgun, Alan trying desperately to act the hero, and the cops in full pursuit. But even here the action is kept relatively small-scaled; a few doddering old folk—typical British eccentrics—are added to the mix, but basically Coogan and Meaney carry the plot along pretty much by themselves to the end.

And they’re quite enough. Coogan has played Partridge for so long it’s become virtually second nature to him, and he embodies the unaccountably smug, self-absorbed fellow perfectly, even managing to bring just a hint of a suggestion that he might not be entirely unaware of his flaws. Meaney, who can switch from geniality to menace on a dime, is equally fine as the volatile Farrell. Under the loose but not lackadaisical hand of director Declan Lowney, the rest of the cast contribute sharp supporting turns, with Montagu taking the prize as Alan’s devoted aide. On the technical side of things, cinematographer Ben Smithard takes advantage of the Norfolk locations and the other members of the crew do solid work. Happily the score by Ilan Eshkeri doesn’t feel the need to pump up the laughs, and the other music cues—mostly involving songs played over the air—are wittily chosen.

The subtitle “Alpha Papa” of the original British release has apparently been shelved for international distribution. But Coogan’s humor travels as well as single-malt Scotch or Irish Whiskey.

Okay, Jim Jarmusch has made a vampire movie, but as you might expect, “Twilight” it’s not. “Only Lovers Left Alive” imposes the cult writer-director’s idiosyncratic style—slow and deadpan—upon the story of some ultra-cool bloodsuckers—one of them Christopher Marlowe—who have survived over the centuries not only by quaffing down the necessary amounts of sanguinary fluid, but also by living unobtrusive though highly artistic half-lives. Devotees of Jarmusch’s work will call the result dreamy and hypnotic. Those of us not taken with his characteristic approach will instead see it as pretty but insufferably dull. From the latter perspective the movie isn’t just like watching paint dry; it’s like watching paint dry, scraping it off, repainting, watching it dry again, scraping it off, repainting, watching it dry, and so on interminably.

The titular lovers are two vampires—Adam (Tim Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton)—who have been devoted to each other literally for centuries. But they’re apart, she in Tangiers, where she’s supplied with uncontaminated blood by none other than Marlowe (John Hurt), and he in Detroit, where he secures his stash from a doctor named Watson (Jeffrey Wright) while purchasing the vintage guitars he collects with the help of Ian (Anton Yelchin), a scraggly rock groupie. When Adam, tiring of existence in a world populated by “zombies” (i.e., mere humans), contemplates suicide, Eve takes a night flight to Michigan to dissuade him.

The two enjoy an idyllic time together, which mostly involves sipping high-quality blood from exquisite long-stemmed sherry glasses (or enjoying it in the form of bloodsicles), engaging in name-dropping about famous old friends whose artistic triumphs they revere, and slow-dancing to old favorites. Occasionally they’ll take a drive around the shattered remnants of the city, bemoaning the transformation of a beautiful old theatre into a parking lot as emblematic of what’s wrong with modernity.

But their peace is shattered when Eve’s wild sister (Mia Wasikowska) shows up from L.A. with all the worst habits of a wanton California lifestyle. Not only does she greedily devour their blood supply, but she trashes Adam’s prize possessions and seduces Ian as a source of further nourishment. Her antics make it impossible for Adam and Eve to remain in Detroit, but when they decamp to Tangiers, they find their old buddy Marlowe no longer able to provide the sustenance they need and are forced to look elsewhere if they are to survive.

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is a thinly-disguised parable of addiction presented with a smug certitude of the hipness of those who made it and those who will identify with its ethos. The superiority of the vampires over the humans they deride as “zombies” is expressed through condescending asides that range from the blindingly obvious (as when Marlowe complains about that blockhead Shakespeare getting credit for plays that he had actually written) to the more abstruse (Eve reminds Adam of a string quintet he composed for Schubert, to which he replies that he contributed only the slow movement—which connoisseurs will know is regarded as the sublime essence of the piece). This sort of cutesiness fills the movie, making it seem calculated to treat those who don’t “get” it with condescension.

Of course Jarmusch and his team, led by cinematographer Yorick Le Saux, manage some visually striking compositions, which Affonso Goncalves’ leisurely editing gives a languid beauty. And the director’s penchant for showcasing diverse musical tracks, often at the expense of forward momentum, is in evidence as well. All of these factors give the film a funereal feel, despite the evocative appearance.

Swinton and Hiddleston are entirely in synch with the mood their director is determined to achieve, and though there’s more than a hint of affectation in their performances, they couldn’t fit Jarmusch’s conception any better. Yelchin’s ingratiating presence is a nice exception to the generally phlegmatic mood, but Wasikowska is grating—the fault of her character more than her performance. And the ever-dependable Hurt lends a touch of world-weary class to the proceedings as the grizzled Marlowe.

In the end, though, the picture—which happily sidestepping the clichés of the vampire genre—is basically another offering for Jarmusch cultists to hungrily devour rather than a film designed to attract others to his orbit. And that’s probably the way the director—who seems to have a lot of Adam in him—likes it.