An antidote to ‘Twilight’ fever

Let the Right One In
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I’ve just seen a movie that will bowl you over. It’s called “Let the Right One In,” and it is a masterpiece. It is a Swedish import about the relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and a vampire, and it is lovely, tender, heartbreaking. If you have not seen it, find a way.

Do not be scared away by the fact that the movie is about a vampire. It is not a horror film or a thriller; it’s a poignant coming-of-age story that just happens to concern an adolescent bloodsucker. It is sometimes bloody, but it does not resort to cheap shocks. It is about children, but it is not a children’s film, and it draws characters that are wise beyond their years.

One of the protagonists is Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), who is smart and resourceful but very unpopular, and who bears the brunt of the school bully’s cruelest tricks. When his teacher warns the class about a serial killer who has been draining young people of their blood, Oskar does not cower—he clips out the newspaper headlines and pastes them in an album.

He likes to sit out in the dilapidated playground behind his apartment building, and there he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), who is also twelve (“more or less”) but looks a lot older—her face is creased with deep lines, her eyes have dark circles underneath—and she smells funny, like a corpse. But she is intriguing and she likes Oskar, and they continue to meet every night on the jungle gym.

Eli, as you may have gathered, is the vampire in the story, yet Oskar doesn’t realize it. Yes, she’s strange, but then so is he, so he doesn’t question. And when he does finally discover her secret, he isn’t scared, he’s intrigued. She, in turn, becomes his protector, and her confrontation with Oskar's tormentors at school is terrifying, gratifying and, somehow, strangely moving.

There are some strange subplots lurking at the corners of the screenplay, including the relationship between Eli and a creepy middle-aged man (Per Ragnar) who commits grisly murders to provide her with blood, and the perils of a woman (Ika Nord) who is bitten by Eli and finds herself slowly turning into a vampire.

But Oskar and Eli are the heart of “Let the Right One In,” and they personify in equal parts the wistfulness and hopelessness of adolescence, and the dreamy idealism of a first love. Hedebrant and Leandersson are remarkable in roles that very few child actors could pull off—that they have never acted before certainly helps, because they find an organic approach to the material that makes it feel so real.

If “Let the Right One In” bears any resemblance to “Twilight,” the popular teen vampire romance currently in release, it is in premise only. This movie, unlike “Twilight,” is thoughtful and doesn’t tell its story in broad, dumbed-down strokes; it intelligently explores the relationship between an innocent and a monster, and it is so much more artistically engaging. It’s a shame it won’t make nearly as much money.

It also doesn’t sanitize the more macabre aspects of vampirism as “Twilight” does, and although the film does contain moments of sudden violence, director Tomas Anderson finds beauty in grotesque images. Look at the climax of the movie, which is set at an indoor pool, which is photographed, edited and acted so brilliantly and originally that I cannot imagine it being done any better.

“Let the Right One In” is one of the best films of 2008, a picture that, like Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” is a fairy tale for grown-ups. It channels the icy silences of Bergman, the dream-like reverie of Fellini and the adolescent torment of Malle.

And, more than any other recent movie, recalls the pangs of childhood very well. “I’ve been twelve for a very long time,” Eli says at one point. Isn’t that how most twelve-year-olds feel anyway?

Grade: A+

Directed by Tomas Alfredson. Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist; based on his novel. Starring Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist and Peter Carlberg. R; 114m.