Movie Review - Let the Right One In (SPOILER ALERTS)

[Paolo]

As posted earlier in another thread, a Swedish boy makes friends with a 12 yo. vampire who turns out to be not a girl, but a 'nullo' eunuch.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/

My review:

Oskar is a lonely boy living in Sweden. His parents are split up, and he is endlessly tormented by bullies at school. He fantasizes about killing, however; he keeps newspaper clippings in a scrapbook on violent crimes and murders. He carries a sheath knife, but never uses it except to attack a tree in frustration.

Then Eli (pronounced 'EEE-Lee') moves in, into the apartment next door. Eli is a 12 yo. girl, but only seems to come at night and never gets cold. Oskar wants to be friends, but Eli is aloof. Finally, she opens up and keeps asking Oskar if he would still like her, even if she weren't a girl.

When a string of murders breaks out, Oskar begins to suspect something after spending the night with Eli in his bed - although nothing happens. Eli's guardian vanishes, and the murders increase. Oskar then realizes, when Eli goes nuts at their "blood brothers" ritual and laps up his spilled blood, that she is a vampire. Upon killing an intruder in Eli's home, Oskar sees 'her' naked after a bath. We see a 2 second clip of a genital scar, defining Eli as a 'nullo' eunuch. We never find out why, though. No more is said of it. We are left wondering why Eli is a eunuch, a vampire at that, and how 'he' feels about it - much less how Oskar feels about it.

With Eli's help, Oskar learns to fight back against the bullies at school. Their friendship strengthens, but after Oskar is attacked and nearly killed at a sort of YMCA one night, and Eli rescues him (murdering several bullies in the process) the two leave town on a train.

End of film.

Forgettable, and not worth renting, really. There seems to be no plot, other than "little vampire gets hungry, gets in a jam, makes a friend, and they live happily ever after." Think the Jonathan Lipnicki film with more blood, a short nullo/scar crotch shot, and no loving vampire family - and much less plot.

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

Thankyou Paulo for the warning about a dud of a movie. I will still probably rent it because I am an anal retentive moron when it comes to movies, I watch LOTS of movies, obsses over movies, I even watch the "special features" and all the other garbage on the DVD's. (I should have been a movie critic).

I think I MIGHT rent this corny movie, not so much because of it's quality or lack of it, but because this is the only movie I have heard of about any sort of girl/nullo. So far, I have not found it on the shelf at Hastings.

[balletkyle (imported)]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/synopsis

[NOTE: In the novel, Eli was born male and castrated at age 12 by the vampire that turned him.]

[JustAGuy (imported)]

I've seen the movie....but i havent read the novel...actually i didn't even know there was a novel

oh btw this is my first post.

[bobover3 (imported)]

I had a different take -

"Let the Right One In" weaves together several conventional plots into an unconventional and moving film. Oskar is a 12 year old boy, pretty, lonely, and persecuted by a gang of schoolyard bullies. Eli is a 12 year old girl, Oskar's new next door neighbor, who doesn't attend school, lives with a middle-aged man who cares for her, and only comes out at night. Oskar and Eli meet and slowly become friends. Young, first love seems about to redeem two lives.

Eli is pretty but strange - she is indifferent to the cold of the winter night; her windows are boarded up; she is preternaturally smart. Oh, yes, she's also a vampire, something we learn only as telling details mount. In fact, she's been 12 years old "for a very long time." Her human companion collects blood for her, abducting young men, hanging them upside down, and draining the blood from their necks into a funnel and bottle.

One of the movie's striking affects is the alternation between the tenderness and emotional vulnerability of the two youngsters, and the matter of fact savagery that surrounds their lives - perhaps typical of youth. Oskar suffers ecstatically at the hands of his tormentors. (I was driven at one point to think of Dreyer's "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.") Eli explains that she must kill to live. Their very vulnerability makes them feel their hurts more deeply and long for a greater revenge.

Oskar and Eli save one another's lives, and Oskar comes to accept what Eli is. When Eli's caretaker dies, Oskar begins to take his place, and we understand that the dead man might once have been a boy who loved Eli, just like Oskar.

There are undercurrents of sexual anxiety. Oskar's parents are separated, and we see his father with a male friend whose closeness is made to seem suspect. Eli's victims include two men who love one another, and the rejected wife of one of those men. A quiet sadomasochism pervades the film. The frigid silences of the Swedish winter night scream with wordless pain. In this anguished world, the closeness of Oskar with Eli, who explains that she's not a girl, is an asexual oasis of calm and safety.

Oskar and Eli escape into their relationship at last, putting their troubles behind them. While implausible, this is experienced as a happy end. "Let the Right One In" is really a film about the emotions of adolescence - about cruelty, indifference, and sex - with Eli's powers offering dream-like solutions. It is sensitive, grave, and beautiful. Despite its genre association, it's an unmissable film. In Swedish with subtitles.

You might not care for a genre film, but this one is quite special.

[Paolo]

True, the books are always better. Maybe I'll try and hunt it down, if my education is sufficient to read it...

[bobover3 (imported)]

I was writing about the movie. I haven't read the book. The critical response to the movie has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's still playing in New York after many months, which shows it's found an audience. Sorry to differ, but I feel "Let the right One In" was one of the best films of 2008.

[snakecharmer (imported)]

Thanks for the great summary bobover! i agree with you and could not have said it better..there is quite a bit of innocent love here in the movie and the child's openness to the world and possibilities without condemnation.

[chilliwilli (imported)]

I was writing about the movie. I haven't read the book. The critical response to the movie has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's still playing in New York after many months, which shows it's found an audience. Sorry to differ, but I feel "Let the right One In" was one of the best films of 2008.

bobover-

I saw it the other day. Good film, wish they had developed the love story between Eli and Oscar some more though.

chilli-

[Paolo]

I'm glad somebody liked it, because it put me to sleep at least once.