Let The Right One In

Though it is already primed for an American remake in 2010, this Swedish coming-of-age horror tale from director Tomas Alfredson needs no revision. Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In) tells the story of 12-year-old outcast Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) who lives alone with his mother, suffers from the constant harassment of bullies, and collects clippings from the local papers about mysterious murders and other grim deaths. His life becomes suddenly and irreversibly altered when he befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson) one day on the playground. She appears to be a 12-year-old, but in actuality she has been 12-years-old for a very long time. Her nature is perpetually ambiguous (and perhaps androgynous), but her blood lust suggests she shares a commonality with the mythic creatures described colloquially as "vampires."

The odd pair's bond is a delicately depicted comradery between two very broken souls. It begins first as a simple friendship between people with no friends, and no alternatives. But by film's end, it has blossomed into a dangerous prepubescent romance littered with logical complications yet oddly stirring underpinnings. The film is primarily a genre masterpiece that dazzles with its haunting visuals and eerie narrative advances. Beneath the surface, though, it screams out with anguish to be read more deeply as a text on the frailty of human connection and the unusualness of its occurence. Convention is tested to the max as we ponder whether we can really root for a shy 12-year-old to elope with a vampiric creature of unknown age. It's May-December with a gothic twist.

And again, it's still more. Goodness and loyalty are in question and "To whom should one we be loyal?" is a question proposed. Eli is by natural a murderous creature, but she tends to Oskar with a sincerity none of his peers or adult guardians do. Should he then kill for her? Or should he simply kill her? Can she really experience the dark love for him that she suggests through her surface actions? The one thing certain is that this is a film of questions and not of answers. It opens the room to inquisition and then boards a train and heads off to the next station, as does Eli, taking with it all the danger and tummult it first offered to the quaint burg it entered previously, and equally our own minds as audience.

Grade: A