Let the Right one In

Let the right one in or in its original Swedish title Let den Ratte Komma in has been described in purest terms as a story about ‘the loneliest little boy in the world’  by both director Tomas Alfredson and author  of the book it was based on.  The little boy in question is Oskar, bullied mercilessly by his peers and largely ignored by his divorced parents who pass him from one to the other as if forgetting this is a fragile child on the very brink of adolescence. Oskar spends most of his time day dreaming about finally getting revenge on his tormentors, looking out of his window into desolate suburbia, willing something-anything, to happen. Only one day something does happen. A pretty, mysterious girl his own age moves into the flat opposite, her name is Eli and soon she and Oskar begin meeting  in the frozen play area outside their apartment complex and Oskar believes he has finally met a kindred spirit. Yet there are sinister undertones to what appears to be a sweet yet naive romance between the two youngsters. For one, there is a killer on the loose in the town of Blackberge, Sweden and, as several bodies begin to turn up, Oskar must ask himself some questions about his new friend. Why are the windows to her apartment blacked out with cardboard? Why does she sometimes have a funny smell of decay? And why does she panic so much when Oskar cuts his hand, in a clumsy attempt of solidifying their friendship, allowing his blood to drip to the floor?

Based on the book of the same name by Swedish author, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the right one in is artful in the way it manages to summon up an atmosphere of dread and disorientation, that manages  not only to unsettle but amaze with its dark beauty. This is helped enormously by its setting in a wintry suburb of Stockholm, a claustrophobic town surrounded by a landscape that is beautiful on the surface but ultimately threatening and hostile in its unrelenting stretches of snow and ice. The same can be applied to the character of Eli, as we come to realise there is definitely more to her than meets the eye, a gruesome and horrible reality that we may wish we’d never learnt.  

Heavily marketed as a horror film, the film has deservedly garnered much critical acclaim as a film from this genre. Of course being a film about vampires, we would expect the film to play upon certain horror conventions. To some extent this is not an illogical conclusion as the film does indeed have moments that are genuinely frightening and is certainly not for those averse to occasional blood splatter and other intense moments designed to elicit a reaction of dread and terror. Yet to consider Let the right one in as merely a horror film, is to do it a disservice, as it is so much more than this. It is a film that manages to give us some sort of reality about the pain of adolescence and is therefore able to convey a story. One of a desperate friendship between two ostracized and isolated children and one that allows us to gain some insight into the characters it presents in all their, sometimes unpleasant, nakedness.

 Brutal but brilliant, and intense with feeling without ever becoming sentimental, Let the right one in is truly a remarkable piece of film making. A Hollywood remake is to arrive in cinemas very shortly but I can say without hesitation that it is wholly unnecessary. The reason being that Let the right one in is one of those rare films that does not come along very often. It has an unparalleled cinematic style and a disturbing yet fascinating atmosphere that could not have been derived to the same extent if the film were set anywhere else than in its native Sweden.With extremely strong performances from its two young stars, haunting and almost poetically beautiful cinematography and many superb moments, including an ending scene in a pool which I count among some of the most masterful scenes ever created in cinema, Let the right one in is a stunning film in every sense of the word.  The characters are treated with sympathy yet they are never allowed to become wholly innocent figures. Even the tormented Oskar eventually learns to stand up to his aggressors, with Elis help, and in doing so loses the last remnants of his childhood and is left at the end of the film world weary- no longer shielded from horror, on his way to becoming an adult. It is in this uniqueness and inventiveness that Let the right one in stands alone as a dark, yet ultimately tender parable of adolescence that will be talked about for years to come.