Let The Right One In Review

Written by: jackalqueen   

aka 'Lat Den Ratte Komma In'

This is a Swedish film, set in the early 80's, about a 12 year old boy called Oskar who is being bullied by a gang of boys at school. He is befriended by an odd girl called Eli who has moved in next door and is the same age...technically. She just happens to have been 12 for a long, long time. Eli is a vampire, something she at first hides from Oskar but he eventually realises it for himself and chooses to help her before her secret gets her killed.

This is beautifully shot and the blossoming love story between the two outcasts is very touching. The two lead characters do an outstanding job and the effects, when called for, are really well done - the problem is that they aren't called for very often.

The film is almost two hours long and the action, in total throughout the film, lasts maybe 10 minutes of that. The rest is about Oskar learning to fight back and the love story between Oskar and Eli, who may or may not even be a girl (apparently it's a castrated boy in the book, but I haven't read it so I don't know for sure).

I'm assuming this didn't have a huge budget because it manages to stick closely to vampire lore without showing too much (not a pair of fangs in sight) but that works because your imagination fills in all the blanks anyway.

I would recommend this, as long as you are prepared for it to be very slow, mainly because the actors are so good and the effects are very well done. I want to rate this much higher but the lack of action really does spoil what could have been a great film.

As it's Swedish, it'll be no surprise to learn that this is already on the remake list for 2010.