Is there anything more frightening than a child who must act violently out of necessity, whose very nature is violent? Or a child whose life is so steeped in loneliness, neglect, and sorrow that violence is an inevitable outcome? Two such children populate the world of Tomas Alfredson's "Let the Right One In." One is twelve, and the other is twelveâ¦more or less. She has just been twelve for a very long time.
Adapted from a novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, "Let the Right One In" is an oddly touching, often disturbing Swedish film that has already been described by some as "Twilight" as directed by Ingmar Bergman. Like "Twilight," "Let the Right One In" is adapted from a novel. It is also the story of a relationship between a vampire and a human, but the similarities end there.
Where "Twilight" relies on trite gimmickry, "Let the Right One In" presents its vampire with startling gravitas. It does what all good horror movies must do, something that has become a rarity for horror movies today: it takes its monster seriously, and causes us to feel for its monster and attempt to understand the monsters actions. "Let the Right One In" is directed with the same artistry and elegance as "Pan's Labyrinth" or "May," and it is undoubtedly one of the best-and at the very least the most original and haunting-films of the year.
"Let the Right One In" tells the story of Oskar (KÃ¥re Hedebrant), a lonely little boy living in Sweden who is viciously bullied by a group of children at school. The leader of the bullies is a sadistic little brute who coerces other children to participate in the bullying even if they don't want to, leaving them just as traumatized as Oskar. At night, Oskar dreams of revenge, standing in front of his mirror with a knife, he fantasizes of stabbing the bullies to death and taunting them with the same insults that they hurl towards him day after day. But Oskar is far too meek to act upon his fantasies, and he does not gain much support or comfort from his neglectful but not wholly unloving mother.
Soon a girl and an older man move in to the apartment next door, and become the talk of the neighborhood gossips. The pretty but peculiar girl is named Eli (Lina Leandersson), who only seems to come outside at night. She first greets Oskar when he is acting out one of his revenge fantasies on a tree, stabbing it and cursing it like the bullies who haunt him.
The first thing she tells Oskar is "we can't be friends," and it is here that we begin to understand that Eli is also painfully lonely, but unlike Oskar, her loneliness is somehow necessary. She leaves with a strange older man named HÃ¥kan (Per Ragnar), who as it turns out is a serial killer that knocks his victims unconscious then strings them upside down, slits their throat, and drains their blood in to a jug.
The murders soon become town gossip as well, and the strange old man with his oddly pale, seemingly nocturnal "daughter" look increasingly suspicious. In spite of her earlier warning, Eli and Oskar soon strike up a surprising friendship. Oskar notices that she smells funny-like a corpse-and for some reason she isn't bothered by the freezing cold.
Eli soon begins to urge him to fight back against the bullies, saying, "Hit backâ¦hard. Harder than you'd ever dare. And then they'll stop." Oskar actually takes her advice, retaliating with startling violence, which is met with resounding approval from Eli.
At one point Eli and Oskar lay in bed together nude, but their relationship is completely asexual, they are too young to have a concept of love that is complicated by sex or even gender identification, making their love somehow more pure.
In regards to gender, when Oskar asks if Eli would like to go steady with him, she admits to him gently, "Oskar, I'm not a girl." He doesn't mind, since to him their love exists regardless of gender; Oskar's pre-pubescent innocence is not yet spoiled by the messy trials and tribulations of puberty.
Oskar soon realizes what Eli means when she says that she's not a girl, as he witnesses her undressing at one point and sees that she has a scar in place of genitalia, perhaps indicating that she was a girl when she was human, but no longer.
When the body count begins to rise, Oskar slowly puts the pieces of the puzzle together, and asks whether or not Eli is a vampire. She hesitates, as if to be uncomfortable with the label of vampire, replying simply with "I live of blood, yes." Oskar asks if she is dead, and she tells him, "I'm twelve. I've just been twelve for a very long time."
Here is where "Let the Right One In" truly stands out from its contemporaries, where "Twilight" relishes in the now hackneyed Hollywood portrayal of vampirism, "Let the Right One In" treats its vampire incredibly seriously, so seriously that the word is only ever used once during the entire movie.
When Eli avoids calling herself a vampire, the film effectively avoids being pigeonholed as another cheesy vampire movie. The film also pays tribute to the old folkloric tradition that a vampire cannot enter a room unless invited, which explains the title.
Alfredson shoots the film beautifully, and every shot of the somber Swedish snowfall is breathtaking. The beautiful moodiness compliments the internal strife of its characters, which are living in despair and attempting to find comfort in one another. Appropriately, many of the characters are very pale, and their skin comes in stark contrast to the sanguine blood that splatters the film.
Make no mistake though, "Let the Right One In" is a horror film that certainly has its share of scares, and there's plenty of gore to go around. The film ends with a scene of brutal violence that takes place mostly off screen, but from what is shown, we're thankful that we don't get to witness it.
But the violence that closes the film might be the scariest aspect of it. It is violence that occurs solely among a group of prepubescent children, who act brutally because they are pushed to do so out of the sadness that characterizes their very existence. "Let the Right One In" will not make as much money as "Twilight"-although the already scheduled Hollywood remake might-but it is certainly the most haunting, poignant, and fiercely original film of 2008.
