Review of Let the Right One In (2008) by Martin D — 25 Mar 2012

I finally Saw This movie....It was so damn good,it was exciting, frightening, and sad ... I recommend it...Oskar: How old are you?

Eli: Twelve... more or less.

Eli: What about you?

Oskar: Twelve years, eight months and nine days. What do you mean, "more or less"?

Oskar: When's your birthday?

Eli: I don't know.

Oskar: Don't you celebrate your birthday? Your parents... they've got to know.

Eli: [Eli looks down on the ground].

Oskar: Then you don't get any birthday presents, do you?

Eli: No.

A romantic drama about the relationship between a young man and woman, one of whom is a vampire? Wasn't that also the plot of Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke's adaptation of the best-selling novel by Stephenie Meyer?

Yes, but don't worry: this isn't a rehashed cash-in on that film's success. In fact, it's everything Twilight wanted to be but wasn't: beautiful to gaze at, achingly romantic, emotionally involving, unexpectedly terrifying.

Let The Right One In has been adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his own novel. Its name comes from a song by Morrissey ("Let the right one slip in/ And when at last it does/ I'd say you were within your rights to bite/ The right one and say,/ What kept you so long?"). Fittingly so, for the former Smiths front man has long been a friend indeed for these who feel lonely, tentative and in need.

Twelve-year-old Oskar (a captivating Kare Hedebrant) fits that description to a tee. A pale, androgynous boy, his skin as soft and white as the snow-cased expanses of the Stockholm suburb where he lives with his divorced mother, he is often attacked by bullies at school. "Little piggy!" taunts their leader Conny (Patrik Rydmark). Oskar stares at his Rubik's cube (the year is 1982), and dreams of being tough and cold-blooded enough to take on his enemies.

One evening, while out stabbing a tree repeatedly with his hunting knife, he comes across a young girl called Eli (an almost distressingly soulful Lina Leandersson) who doesn't wear a coat and doesn't seem to feel the sub-zero temperature at all. She has sad eyes, slightly grubby features, and a manner gentler and more beguiling than that of any of his classmates.