After seeing numerous vampire-related films in my lifetime, it has become obvious to me that it was going to take a special film to bring the genre out of the gutter of my filmic mind. “Let the Right One In” is not that film.
This is a Swedish film that made its rounds on the festival circuit earlier this year. Oskar, a 12-year-old boy who gets bullied at school, desires revenge against his enemies. He practices torturing and berating his foes in front of the mirror, like a grade-school Travis Bickle. His weapon of choice: the knife.
Eli, not a “girl,” but a female vampire, is 12 years old, but has lived for much longer. Like all vampires, she feeds off the blood of others. To keep her contained, her father (or at least father-figure), packs a kit full of mugging and blood-draining tools each night and ventures into the woods to find an unsuspecting victim and future fuel for Eli. When one of his nightly blood-gatherings is thwarted, Eli lashes out at him in such a way that when another attempt is stalled, he figures to sacrifice himself instead of enduring another backlash of disappointment.
With her blood-gatherer and fuel-producer now gone, Eli needs to venture out and fend for herself. She witnesses Oskar administering his pseudo-punishment on a tree and takes a liking to him, as he does likewise. They develop a romantic friendship and she urges Oskar to no longer give in to being outnumbered on the schoolyard.
If the premise I described sounds like something you might be interested in, great. I felt the same way. Coupled with the lavish praise bestowed upon it (at the time of this writing it holds a 96% Fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com), I was ready to be engaged by a vampire film where many others had failed. “Interview with a Vampire,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “30 Days of Night,” all had aspects of intrigue for me, but failed to capitalize on them. The same goes for “Let the Right One In.”
There are aspects of vampire lore that everyone knows about. They can’t go into the sunlight, they sleep in coffins, they can’t see their own reflections, etc. This film doesn’t go out of its way to redefine any of those, but added a couple new wrinkles that were left unexplained.
The unexplained is wherein most of the problems lay. By no means was the film incomprehensible. I’ve seen enough of those to know what they look like. Rather, scenes and events are disjointed. Numerous sequences and scenarios needing fleshing out. Conversations are left un-had. There is a scene where Oskar visits Eli at her house. The house is so plain and barren, he makes the assumption that she’s poor. She points to a small golden egg in the middle of a table and says, “You could buy a nuclear power plant if you sold that.” That’s great. What is it? Who knows? It’s a nothing moment. The egg is not a MacGuffin. It’s not the suitcase in “Pulp Fiction.” It doesn’t drive the plot at all. It’s apparently an expensive egg. That’s all you’re going to get.
At one point, Oskar disapproves of Eli and her vampire ways, biting people and taking their money. The film appears to enter into the part of the formula where “boy rejects vampire,” but it doesn’t come to fruition. Although I respect the choice to go against formula, it’s again a moment of waste. Oskar states his position, but nothing comes of it and the story carries on as if it never occurred.
All is not to be completely dismissed, however, as there certainly are things to admire. The problem is that most of the deserved admiration comes across in idea and attempt rather than execution. It’s easy to see why Oskar would be attracted to Eli. He is alone in the world. Isolated from his classmates. Perennially picked on. He has the desire to enact revenge, but he lacks the mentality and physical prowess to defend himself. Although Eli is the same age, it’s in her nature to attack. When she attacks, it’s for survival. When Oskar’s supposed to attack, it’s for the same. The parallels are well-drawn.
Director, Tomas Alfredson, succeeds in creating an eerie wintry atmosphere appropriate for the subdued story. He eschews the slick, snowy rhetoric employed by the aforementioned “30 Days of Night.” Also, primarily concealed are some of Eli’s vampiric traits. We never see her fly, although know it takes place. Alfredson knows we’ve seen it all before and chooses to keep things focused on the story instead of oft-seen effects. The two adolescent leads are both intriguing and make it easy to recognize the daily stressors that each character must deal with. The storyline is an engaging one, as you’re invested in Oskar’s plight against his tormentors and look forward to seeing how Eli can aid him.
The pieces of a very good film are in place, but the connective tissue is missing. There are well-crafted situations in which the characters can thrive, but they aren’t fleshed out enough to do so. There is blood, but those hoping to satiate their vampiric-like desire for such things will carry on disappointed. This is not a vampire movie with moments of drama, but a drama that happens to contain a vampire. I’m all for the idea, just not the way it was carried out.
