FILM REVIEW: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

Sure, Halloween is over, but that’s no reason to skip the best vampire film to come by in years. Let the Right One In tells the story of Oskar, a 12 year-old boy growing up in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeburg in 1982. Oskar is bullied at school and has no friends; his divorced mom has a hard time getting through to him and his father lives far off in the country. Fortunately, a new girl has moved in right next door. She’s Oskar’s age and carries herself with the confidence that he lacks. They’d be the perfect puppy love couple, except for the fact that the girl, named Eli, lives off of other people’s blood. That is why she doesn’t go to school, why she and Oskar always meet up in the empty, snow-covered courtyard of their apartment building at night, and why she never wears a coat when she comes out. When Oskar eventually learns Eli’s secret, he is forced to decide whether to stand by his girl or shun her.

This is a film that could have gone wrong in so many ways, but consistently stays on course. It’s hard to capture the nuances of childhood on film, especially the awkward age of 12. Throw first romance, first experiments with sex, and serious moral dilemmas into the mix, and you have a film that Hollywood would not have touched with a 10 foot stake. Their loss, our gain. This is a beautiful film that balances revulsion and scares with characters that are too complicated to be mere villains or heroes; even the bullies have sympathetic moments. Let the Right One In is well worth enduring the Angelika’s subway noises for. Indeed, the sound of rumbling trains only added to the eerie desolation of a Swedish winter. You should go.

Let the Right One In
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Sweden, 2008
Rated R
114 minutes

Now playing at the Angelika
18 W. Houston Street

12:15 PM, 2:45 PM, 5:15 PM, 7:45 PM, 10:15 PM