Not four months on from the “Twilight phenomenon” renewed widespread popularity in vampire lore in a way not seen since Buffy, the Swedish Let the Right One In (Låt Den Rätte Komma In) brings an unconventional vampire tale quite unlike one you’ll ever have seen before.
A beautiful but bizarre ode to friendship, love and loyalty, Let the Right One In is set in the 1980s depression-era Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg. A perma-snow covered winter wonderland, Blackeberg hides a dark secret: the newly-arrived presence of a vampire.
Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant, in a Haley Joel Osmont level of performance) is a bullied 12-year-old girly boy loner living on a housing estate. With no friends to speak of and a trio of bigger boys constantly picking on him at school, Oskar spends his off-days alone in the snow dreaming of revenge.
Then Eli (Lina Leandersson), a peculiar girl that speaks in cryptics, who smells funny, doesn’t wear a coat outside even though it’s freezing and can only come into a room after she’s been invited, enters his life. Initially reluctant to strike up an accord, Eli becomes progressively drawn to the unusual Oskar as they spend more time together and he shares his feelings with her.
Giving Oskar the strength to hit back at his bullies, Eli unwittingly puts in motion events that can only end one way. And when Oskar discovers that Eli must feed upon other people’s blood to live, Oskar must decide how far his love for her can extend.
Offering an entirely fresh twist on the vampire myth (while sticking to most of the genre conventions), Let the Right One In is not your bog-standard vampirism-as-a-metaphor-for-sexuality tale. Instead it chooses to comment on the repressed anger and desire for violence that grips almost all of us at some point. The touching relationship that Oskar and Eli share is not one borne out of sexuality; instead it is an innocent one of longing, equality and a need for companionship. These may be children (albeit one of them is hundreds of years old), but the themes are not childish.
This is not a film of cheap gimmicks and jumps. It is not even a horror per se. No, it is a film about the complexities of relationships. It is a stylised social realist film about the life and times of Swedish living. It is something truly unique and truly special.
Of course, that’s not to say it is without its creeps. Atmospheric, with a sense of eerie unease from the start and a slow burn that you know is always escalating towards something horrifying, its climax will no doubt be one of the talking points of any film this year. It leaves an indelible mark upon the mind.
As does the scarily good performance of one Lina Leandersson as the 12-going-on-200-year-old vampire Eli. Managing to somehow appear as if she’s a child and an adult in the same body at the same time, it is a performance well beyond her years and ranks as one of the best child performances of all time.
[etRating value=“ 4.5”]
A beautiful but bizarre ode to friendship, love and loyalty, Let the Right One In is set in the 1980s depression-era Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg. A perma-snow covered winter wonderland, Blackeberg hides a dark secret: the newly-arrived presence of a vampire.
Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant, in a Haley Joel Osmont level of performance) is a bullied 12-year-old girly boy loner living on a housing estate. With no friends to speak of and a trio of bigger boys constantly picking on him at school, Oskar spends his off-days alone in the snow dreaming of revenge.
Then Eli (Lina Leandersson), a peculiar girl that speaks in cryptics, who smells funny, doesn’t wear a coat outside even though it’s freezing and can only come into a room after she’s been invited, enters his life. Initially reluctant to strike up an accord, Eli becomes progressively drawn to the unusual Oskar as they spend more time together and he shares his feelings with her.
Giving Oskar the strength to hit back at his bullies, Eli unwittingly puts in motion events that can only end one way. And when Oskar discovers that Eli must feed upon other people’s blood to live, Oskar must decide how far his love for her can extend.
Offering an entirely fresh twist on the vampire myth (while sticking to most of the genre conventions), Let the Right One In is not your bog-standard vampirism-as-a-metaphor-for-sexuality tale. Instead it chooses to comment on the repressed anger and desire for violence that grips almost all of us at some point. The touching relationship that Oskar and Eli share is not one borne out of sexuality; instead it is an innocent one of longing, equality and a need for companionship. These may be children (albeit one of them is hundreds of years old), but the themes are not childish.
This is not a film of cheap gimmicks and jumps. It is not even a horror per se. No, it is a film about the complexities of relationships. It is a stylised social realist film about the life and times of Swedish living. It is something truly unique and truly special.
Of course, that’s not to say it is without its creeps. Atmospheric, with a sense of eerie unease from the start and a slow burn that you know is always escalating towards something horrifying, its climax will no doubt be one of the talking points of any film this year. It leaves an indelible mark upon the mind.
As does the scarily good performance of one Lina Leandersson as the 12-going-on-200-year-old vampire Eli. Managing to somehow appear as if she’s a child and an adult in the same body at the same time, it is a performance well beyond her years and ranks as one of the best child performances of all time.
[etRating value=“ 4.5”]
