Let The Right One In

I had heard very little about this movie until I was trolling Target for a trash can and a wine rack when I walked through the media center and there it was, in a shinny case with lovely lenticular cover. Being me, and knowing it was a vampire movie in Swedish, I totally had to buy it. I figured I could watch it while I organize and scrub cabinets.

The only thing I was disappointed with was that it was dubbed and not in Swedish. This was done I assume because it is hard to take anything seriously when it is spoken in Swedish. Seriously, have you ever heard that language? It is silly German. Based on a book, this is an interesting twist to the vampire genre.

We are introduced to Oskar a 12 year old who could pass as an albino if it weren’t for his eyes. This kid is so blond it is nearly translucent. Oskar is getting picked on in school by a little boy who will grow up and ethnically cleanse an entire continent. But at night Oskar pretends to stab said bully with a little girly knife. But when you are getting bullied anything sharp is comforting. One night while Oskar is stabbing at the air in his tighty-whities, a car pulls up to the apartment building with an old man and a young girl. The man has some silly Swedish name, so I’ll just call him Ikea. Ikea turns out to be the handler of the little vampire girl, his job is to protect her and feed her. This is accomplished with less than stellar grace as we see him clumsily string up and drain a man in the park, and is then chased away by neighborhood dog without any of the blood he collected.

Oskar meets the androgynous girl in the playground and is introduced as Eli. Eli brushes off a friendship with Oskar but shows up again the next night smelling funny due to her hunger and asking about Oskar’s Rubix Cube. Driven by hunger Eli is left to find food, while her handler begins to feel inadequate at caring for her.

Eli, who incidentally is technically a boy in the novel but has been castrated, slowly builds a bond with Oskar. There are moments in the movie when she refers to herself and not really being a girl, but it is assumed that she is referring to her vampirism. Eli and Oscar form an almost romantic relationship, they tap Morse code messages on the walls to one another, and Eli becomes his protector from the bullies. When Ikea is cornered trying to obtain more blood for Eli when he pours acid over his face to protect her since people in the town can trace him to her, Eli’s safety is in jeopardy. She can stay with her friend Oskar and be hunted by suspicious citizens, or move on.

It was an oddly romantic story that was well paced and not what you would expect.