Let the Right One In Review

*Minor Spoilers*

Ah, here is a vampire film that is truly worth your time.  Why?  Because it is, among other things, extremely honest!  Here is a film that isn’t really pitching itself to any specific audience.  It’s a vampire film, sure, but it has quite an intriguing story to tell.  Its two main characters are two twelve-year-olds — Oskar and Eli — yet this is by no means a film for that age group (its R rating is definitely there for a reason).

Oskar is a quiet and reserved child, which is probably why he’s such an easy target for a group of bullies at his school.  He spends his time at home alone, trying to muster the courage to one day fight back.  It’s during the midst of one of these “practices” outside that Eli interrupts him one evening, questioning what he is doing.  Abruptly, though, she tells him that they cannot be friends and disappears.  Meanwhile a slew of murders have been happening, according to the papers, and we witness a man kill another man and then attempt to drain him of his blood.  The man is interrupted but manages to escape and we eventually find that he is living with Eli.  Of course she’s a vampire, but that’s probably no big twist.  We don’t know if the man she lives with is her father or perhaps some other person who came across her one day and felt sorry for her.

Yes, you read correctly, “felt sorry.”  You see, Eli isn’t some soulless creature, just a little girl who was once dealt a foul hand.  We don’t know her back story, nor her age, we only know her through the story that plays out.  And yet even when it’s at its most disturbing, we understand her.  After we see her kill a man under a bridge, we watch her weep as she puts him out of his misery.  We watch her clutch her stomach sadly as it growls in hunger and we know what the inevitability must be.

Let the Right One In is a film much more ingrained in vampire mythology than many other more modern vampire outings: they can only come out at night, and burst into flames and die if in contact with daylight; they can only enter a home when invited (hence the title); and there are absolutely no substitutes for the kind of blood they can drink (i.e., animal blood), only human blood will do.

And aside from the vampire element of the story, one of the best things about this picture is the constant sense of realism that the film shows throughout.  Take the older man that lives with Eli.  He murders people for their blood for her, yet he’s no better at it than any other average person would be.  He slips up.  He doesn’t pick the safest places.  He’s slow.  Take Oskar himself.  A very emotional child who stands his ground even when being beaten by the bullies, not moving, not saying a word, tears streaming down his face.  Hell, take the bullies as well!  The entire time they beat and pick on Oskar we see in their faces a sense of remorse and hesitance that is the reality of the human condition.

Also unlike modern vampires, Eli is a simple, normal looking girl.  Nothing extravagant, just cute.  Yes, she’s strong, a very good climber, and very fast, too, but that’s all mostly standard.  She’s cold to the touch yet when Oskar asks if she’s dead she replies simply “No. Can’t you tell?”  I liked that.

Let the Right One In is also about the innocence of childhood.  Oskar understands that Eli is a killer but he isn’t afraid of her, nor does he think that the murders she commits are necessarily wrong.  All he knows is that he has a friend, one who seems to care for him as much as he does for her.  Kind of sweet if you ask me.

NOTE:  A quick Wikipedia inquiry of the film explains that in the book Eli is actually a boy that was castrated, which explains the line in the film when Eli tells Oskar, “I’m not a girl.”  The film, however, is extremely suggestive that Eli is a girl, and since it is a female playing the part, I think that’s the best way to view the film.  Sure, she says she isn’t a girl, but the line comes during a point of the movie where she could’ve followed it with “I’m not a boy, either” and the audience would have clearly understood.