Let the Right One In (2008): B+

Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In transports vampire legend to the realm of tween romance, melding genres with a haunting poignancy that’s mildly undercut by a script that, during its last act, bounces around like a jeep on a dirt road. Alfredson doesn’t shy away from supernatural lore (sunlight and stakes to the heart are fatal, blood-suckers must be invited across thresholds) but his prime concern is the way that vampires’ undead condition leads to the same type of isolation and loneliness also felt by unpopular adolescents. Thus, when picked-on Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) meets gaunt 12-year-old vampire Eli (unnerving, doe-eyed Lina Leandersson) outside his dreary, snow-coated apartment complex, their bond is immediate, born out of frustration, longing and hunger – hers for blood (which the mystery man with whom she lives attempts to acquire via the murder of innocents), and his for the power to combat a vicious school bully. Anderson’s chilly, pensive aesthetic exudes fairy tale melancholy, comprised equally of ethereal serenity and mundane realism, the latter of which extends to a group of grim adults whose fates are eventually intertwined with Eli’s. These peripheral characters serve basic narrative purposes (specifically, to create opportunities for carnage), yet while their presence expands the film’s portrait of frosty Nordic misery and alienation, it doesn’t do so in any appreciably affecting way. Ultimately, they’re just dull distractions from the central, disturbed romance whose main contribution is a bit of ridiculousness involving a horde of cats. Still, despite these needless narrative detours and a few indie-style affectations (most notably the assertively emotive score, which mucks up the otherwise eerie sound design), Let the Right One In has a gloomy poeticism wrought from arresting supernatural imagery – none more potent than an underwater shot during the public pool finale – as well as striking close-ups that give empathetic consideration to forlorn Oskar and Eli, two kids desperate for a warm, compassionate embrace in an environment frozen to the bone.

Comments

[Nick Plowman]

I saw this myself and subsequently reviewed it and I mostly liked it but there were parts that I found oddly badly done, mostly stuff to do with the vampirisms. Nice review.

eli doesn't have a father. That guy at the beginning was one of the many Oskar's that she's found during her long long life. That's why the ending is so moving and disturbing. She's using lonely boys "her age" to accompany her throughout her immortal life.

[Nick]

I'm not sure if that man was first recruited by Eli when he was a boy (like Oskar), but you're right that he's not her biological father. I meant to clarify my description of him as her "father" and then forgot. My bad.

[Per]

She doesn't recruit boys and she's not using Oscar. The book explains that he is a pedophile whom she has ensnared by looking twelve. It was cut from the moviescript because it was a hard story to tell cinematically.
The relation between her and Oscar is a real one. =)

[Fei]

Don't take the book as gospel as far as the content of the movie is concerned. There was clearly some sort of warm bond between Eli and Håkan as shown in the movie, and Eli was evidently quite deeply saddened when Håkan sacrificed himself. No I'm not arguing that Eli was "using" or "recruiting" Oskar; the intimate bond between them seemed genuine enough. But the tragedy of their relationship is that he will age, but she won't, unless he became a vampire himself. There's no explicit discussion of this issue anywhere in the movie. What was the point of Håkan's character? I feel like his existence in the story has to bear some thematic relevance, or else he's just a plot device.

Eli's far from a noble character. The woman who became a vampire, Virginia, killed herself because she couldn't live with being a monster forever. Eli's deeply troubled by her hunger, but she's determined to keep living, so she keeps killing to satisfy her survival instinct.