LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is simply spellbinding, it is both bloody and tender at the same time. An unlikely vampire romance movie that will leave you breathless. A combination of horror and cute adolescent fling so well directed with… fascinating cinematography, giving you that chilling and beautiful effect which would stay with you hours after you’re done watching the movie. Based on a best-selling novel, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is simply a great, breathtaking adaptation, truly A masterpiece
A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to comes true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him. But Eli’s arrival coincides with a series of gruesome deaths and attacks. Though Oskar realizes that she’s a vampire, his friendship with her is stronger than his fear… Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing, darkly atmospheric, yet unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.
I gotta give props to the child actors involved in this movie. Kare Hedebrant who plays the young kid, gettin’ bullied all the time and is clueless as to how to best defend himself plays his character Oskar with a certain genuine naive presence and when he least expects it, he is faced with the concept of childhood crush, falling for the girl next door who may be more than meets the eye. Lina Leandersson who plays the vampire girl gives a haunting but mesmerizing violent performance, brilliant for her age. It’s impressive how she would immediately go into her defense stance, like an angry cat on alert mode. Her character, Eli, is stuck being a kid all her life but has been around long enough to know that she should never fall for anyone, that is until she meets Oskar and it changes the situations of everything and everybody around them. The chemistry between those two actors are the kind that we would usually expect to happen in more experienced actors. Two lonely characters find themselves drawn to each other and all differences fall apart when they’re together.
It’s a shame to know that Hollywood might be planning to remake this one soon enough just like it has ruined many other great foreign movies. But for now, I just hope that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN gets to be considered as Best Foreign Language movie of the year because of its artistic values and remarkable story. Thomas Alfredson has done an excellent job in bringing us a film that is not too focused on showing us too much graphic gore and brutal violence but leaves something for our imagination, there are moments in this movie where you know in your gut something horrific has just happened but it doesn’t necessarily show them in details, you kinda wonder what may have actually happened but the scenes are gorgeously shot and choreographed in a way that makes you don’t mind at all that it doesn’t expose the fangs, or the usual Hollywood extravagant vampire appearance or characteristics. At the same time, the movie doesn’t go astray from what we’ve grown to know of what Vampires are all about. On top of that, The dark, cold Sweden plays a beautiful backdrop that adds to the already chilling and mysterious movie. Everything leads to a shocking, bloody ending, worthy of being considered one of the best endings in the history of cinema.
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