Review: ‘Let the Right One In’

I looked forward to this film for the better part of a year, and now – having seen it – I highly recommend it. The title “Là ¥t den rà ¤tte komma in” translated, is “Let The Right One in,” and the film is based on a book of the same name. It has the benefit of being written by the author of the source material, John Ajvide Lindqvist. The director, Tomas Alfredson, is more than capable, having been at the helm of several features. His work, as well as cinematographer  Hoyte van Hoytema’s, raises the film above and beyond its genre trappings, turning it into a formidable drama concerning vulnerability and manipulation, innocence and experience.

It stars two young children,  Kà ¥re Hedebrant and  Lina Leandersson, and they carry the film remarkably. This is their show, and the material succeeds because of their collective performances.

“Let the Right One In” won Best Narrative Feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and the  Gà ¶teborg Film Festival awarded the feature with Best Film & Best Cinematography awards.

The story takes place in Sweden, circa 1982, in a suburb of Stockholm. Everything is snow and ice and frozen breath. Oskar (Hedebrant)  is twelve years old, bullied relentlessly, and has violent revenge fantasies. New neighbors move in, an older gentleman and a girl, Eli (Leandersson),  that appears to be Oskar’s age, and the filmmakers waste no time revealing their bloody business.

Murder happens in a very matter-of-fact way in this drama, not because of an insensitivity to the act, but because it is such a natural part of Eli’s existence. Such is the life of a vampire, I suppose.

You will read lots of reviews for this film that call it a “coming-of-age” tale, and in its own minor way this is true. It is Oskar’s coming-of-age story, but it is a disservice to the story to see it only in that light, because it is a very different story when seen from Eli’s point of view.

Vampires in fiction have been largely neutered. The cliche is to paint them in glorious, gothic trappings… to make them seem like objects of desire. Or, in the hands of even less imaginative artists, they become nothing more than murderers, existing to move some tired plot forward.

How often do you get to see them as animals, vulnerable and vicious and as likely to manipulate you into wasting your life as to drain you of blood? This is what Eli is capable of. She can drain you of your fluid in moments. She can manipulate you into becoming her servant for the rest of your life.

It isn’t out of spite or malicious intent, but she is a parasite. To deny those impulses would be like committing suicide. Eli may be morbid, but she is not morose. She wants to live. She needs Oskar, and Oskar needs her.

This is a film about two individuals, for better or for worse, coming together. Both need companions to really live. They service each other’s needs, but does this make them soul mates? Maybe they love each other, maybe they don’t. Maybe, out of a certain kind of desperation, they just need…

The closing moments take place on a speeding train, and I’m reminded of the last moments of “The Graduate,” where Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross are riding into an uncertain – and possibly unhappy – future. Love can have an unreasonably heavy price, be you human or inhuman.

Sometimes what you love will ultimately destroy you. Can you live with that?

[rating: 4.5/5]