Let The Right One In

Director: Thomas Alfredson
Screenwriters: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragna
Running time: 114 mins
Certificate: 15

It's perfectly valid to call Let The Right One In a "vampire romance", but it's about as far removed from multiplexers like Twilight as can be. Set in a sleepy Swedish town in the grips of freezing winter, it tells of a boy and a girl on the cusp of adolescence who find companionship. Oskar (Hedebrant), a 12-year-old with a shock of blond hair and crippling meekness, is the constant victim of school bully Conny (Patrik Rydmark). His dreams of revenge begin to realise themselves when young girl Eli (Leandersson) moves in next door.

An old, creepy man Hakan (Ragna) lives with Eli, and his full relationship with her is never explained, only that he picks off locals and drains them of blood to spare her the horror of killing them herself for a haemoglobin hit. After a botched murder, Hakan finds himself in hospital and Eli is forced to quench her blood-lust alone to survive. She begins to grow closer to Oskar and the pair become a couple - in spite of her confessing that she's not a girl (a brief scene later casts fresh light on this comment) and has been aged 12 for some time.

Let The Right One In is slight with dialogue and plot but demands a lot of its audience, asking to read between the lines and observe subtle gestures and shifts in performances from two androgynous young actors who wear their roles like seasoned pros. At times the light/dark symbolism is served up with too firm a hand - like when Oskar and Eli are observed from their apartment windows with her cast in shadow. However, director Alfredson has a faultless grasp of cinematic language - he often begins a scene with something abstract and undefined, before moving out to reveal its purpose and importance. The same can be said for his treatment of Oskar, who makes more of a mark on his surroundings as he opens himself up to Eli.

Characters dancing around the periphery also feel delicately rendered. A side-story involving a woman who chooses to die to escape life as a vampire and her booze-addled partner is particularly heartbreaking and pointed social commentary on stifling suburbia. Her demise, where she erupts into flames, is breathtaking, only to be topped later by a beautifully brutal and funny underwater scene when Oskar's revenge dreams are fulfilled. Add its impeccable sound design (watch/listen for an audio match cut from teeth brushing to dogs panting), and Let The Right One In is one of the most layered, atmospheric and textured movies of the year.

At times it's horrific and gory, but to lumber it with a 'horror movie' tag is to do it a disservice. It's a dreamlike blend of drama, coming-of-age romance and revenge fantasy thriller rolled into an unforgettable whole. The threat of an American remake from the director of Cloverfield looms, and even with a filmmaker as promising as Matt Reeves at the helm it's difficult to see Let The Right One In safely making the journey through the Hollywood machine and emerging with the same bite.


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