Let the Right One In: Review [movies]

Note: This review contains some light spoilers, but I’ve taken great care not to divulge the plot as much as possible.

This weekend, I had the privilege of seeing Let the Right One In, directed by Tomas Alfredson. Let the Right One In is a Swedish film based on the novel of the same name. It tells a story about two alienated adolescents who meet each other and kind of fall in love, the way that adolescents can. Oh, and one of them happens to be a vampire.

This is a very difficult movie to review, as you could tell from the description. I don’t have E’s experience in reviewing movies, and reviewing this movie is an incredibly daunting task. But here goes.

The film’s main character is Oskar, a 12 year old boy living in Sweden with his mother. He seems like a normal kid, going to school, playing with some toys, getting beat up sometimes, and wandering out in the snow at night when he gets bored. Eventually he meets Eli, a 12 year old girl who moves in next door. After she moves in, a series of murders occur, and Oskar starts wondering what’s going on while continuing his normal life.

On the one hand, this movie is about alienation. Oskar is alienated at school where he gets beat up. His parents obviously love him, but there is obvious strain in those relationships. Eli is alienated, for obvious reasons. These two characters eventually come together from their alienation to friendship, and in that respect, the film is not really that bizarre or strange. Well-trodden coming-of-age territory.

But there’s another underlying theme, good vs. evil: and what is good and what is evil. There are simple ways this is conveyed in the movie. Oskar is a blue-eyed, blonde boy, whereas Eli has dark black hair, and what appear to be abnormally large dark pupils. The palate of this movie is white (it takes place during winter) and black (also a lot takes place at night), with some red. So this movie, in its look, sets up dualities between black and white, light and dark, etc. The resulting movie sets up the two extremes, and then explores all of the area in between. Oskar gets bullied and wants to retaliate, and Eli needs to feed on people, but needs to for self-preservation.

The movie is shot very well to convey both the alienation and good vs. evil themes. There are a lot of shots of characters out by themselves, and even in scenes shared between two actors, the way the shots are framed and the way they interact is set up so that there is always an undercurrent of distance.

The movie looks very ‘analog’ in feel, like it was shot on good old-fashioned cameras, but there is actually a lot of CGI as well. In interviews, the director has said that he uses CGI in small ways in different scenes. He doesn’t create any sort of obvious CGI person or character, but the CGI use was completely seamless, and I didn’t even know there was CGI in the movie until after I saw it.

Also, the acting is fantastic. The two young characters are equally amazing in their roles, Oskar being young and naive, and Eli being dark and mysterious. The adults perform well in their support roles as well.

The movie works on many levels, and is endearing, somewhat funny, horrifying, and thought-provoking all at the same time. I highly recommend that you see it whenever/ifever it comes out where you are.

I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job here. This movie is awesome. It’s bizarre, it’s strange, but it works. I haven’t ever seen a movie like this one, but I hope there will be more of them.