Movie: “Let the Right One In”
Taglines: Based on the bestseller from John Ajvide Lindqvist
Rating: Rated R for bloody violence, disturbing images, brief nudity, and language.
Release: October 24, 2008
Running Time: 114 mins
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, and Per Ragnar… IMDB listing
Verdict:
Let the Right One In is neither a fairy tale nor an Underworld-style action flick, no matter what you read in other reviews. Far from it, this is a delicate but chilling coming of age tale fraught with disturbing sexual overtones and paced to lend it a dream-like quality that is going to haunt you for days.
Audience:
Anyone who enjoyed Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and The Orphanage or the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire should rent this film and carefully savor it. It takes more patience than that of your run-of-the-mill film, but the payoff is significantly greater.
Those looking for a post-Halloween slasher flick will be gravely disappointed.
Synopsis:
Oskar is a lonely twelve year-old school boy who spends his life alternatively dreading the abuse a trio of school bullies heap upon him and fantasizing of revenge. When a strange young girl named Eli moves in next door, the two outcasts slowly form a deep bond. As a series of gruesome murders threatens the safety of the community, Oskar finds himself entranced with the girl’s eccentricities and completely smitten. But when Eli’s father is arrested by police for his possible connection to the killings, her dark secret is finally revealed and Oskar must cope with the both the bizarre truth and the fact that she must leave him.
Review:
This is a difficult film to review because there are a hundred things I want to say about it. It’s a film that inspires conversation rather than mute passivity, and in today’s world of Hollywood films, neatly concluded forty minute television episodes, and Twitter feeds, I think that’s the highest praise I can award a film.
Let the Right One In is ripe for literary analysis or a film class screening and miles away from Hollywood’s treatment of the vampire. Not a single scene in this film unfolds as expected. Not a single line of dialogue spoon feeds the audience. The main characters are complex and well-developed. The plot is bizarre and open-ended.
In short, it’s everything a very intelligent film that literary types, film snobs, and bookworms should enjoy. And anyone who thinks otherwise should trying sitting through next week’s Vampire release, Twilight, before passing judgement.
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