Movie review: Let The Right One In

I used to write movie reviews on another blog I had.  Actually, I only wrote like 3.  I love movies, but just couldn't get myself into writing lots about them.  I liked doing it at first, but then just fell out of the habit I'd never really gotten in to.  If you really care to read the 3 reviews I wrote before this, here's the links.  As this one will, the all contain spoilers for the movies, so if you don't like spoilers I suggest you stop reading now.

The Runaways
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Iron Man 2

Now, Let The Right One In. I'd waited ages to see this film. Ok, not ages. Months. I saw previews for the American adaptation of it, called Let Me In, and, from the previews, thought it looked really good. The I found out it was based on a book, and got my hands on that as soon as I could (aka - for my birthday). Before reading the book, I found out that it was actually translated to English from Swedish, and that there is a Swedish version of the American movie I was so excited to see.  I decided to forget about the American remake.  I was going to see the original.  I couldn't find it in stores anywhere around here, and gave up quickly.  After finally reading the book, I wanted, again, to see the Swedish version of the movie.  I found links online to watch a dubbed version of it, but no.  I hate dubbed movies because the voices never matches up to the character's lips.  Finally, after forever of searching, I found a copy with subtitles to watch online.  Half way through the movie, the subtitles stopped showing up.  I was disappointed and defeated, and took to twitter to complain about it all.  A friend of mine had the movie on DVD and offered to let me borrow it.  Finally, today, I was able to watch the movie I had waited so long to watch.  Unfortunately, my expectations at this point were much higher than they should have been, and the movie left me wanting something more.  Perhaps that could have been because the book was so amazing; there was no way the movie could even come close to touching the book's amazingness.

I felt the movie left out far too much.  While the book was nearly five hundred pages long, the movie was one hundred and fifteen minutes long, but felt much shorter.  The movie felt really rushed.  I hated how they completely left out Eli and Håkan's back-stories.  They left out the fact the Eli didn't kill Håkan after drinking his blood in the hospital, so he became a vampire, and everyone was on the look out for the Monster.  They left out the old man in the taxi who sees Eli fall/jump from the roof of the hospital; he refers to her as "the Angel of Death," which I felt in the book was rather symbolic of who Eli was.  Oskar setting fire to the bullies' desks wasn't in the movie.  The movie left out the characters of Tommy and Staffan, and barely touched on the friendship between Jocke, Lacke, Virginia, and Gösta, and the relationship between Lacke and Virginia.  Also left out was how hard it was for Virginia after becoming a vampire.

I was disappointed by the lack of Eli's back-story.  I think it was important to the story to understand her more.  Eli was more than was the movie made her to be.

There was a lot more to Lacke and Virgina's relationship than what was shown.  Lacke loved her, but didn't know how to show it.  They had an on-again, off-again sort of relationship in the book, while in the movie it made it seem as if they were simply together.  Lacke's love and devotion to Virginia was something I loved about the book.  He wanted to change for her.  He wanted to be with her.  He lived for her, and without her he didn't know how to be.

I hated that they left out how hard it was for Virginia to transition from human to vampire after being attacked by Eli.  I think that whole bit really showed how hard it must have been for Eli, who had only been about 12 about she was turned to a vampire.  Eli tells Oskar at one point in the book that there aren't very many vampires because not many can handle it.  It's quite sad, really.

With everything else that they left out, they made the movie work without it.  Håkan wasn't in the movie for very long, so we didn't need to know really who he was.  It made sense to leave out Tommy and Staffan because, really, all they did in the book was find/capture the Monster, Håkan.  It was ok to leave out the scene where the old man thought Eli was the Angel of Death because, as much as I loved that scene in the book, it was a pretty small scene and easy to overlook.  I didn't even notice that they had left out Oskar setting fire to the school desks until I started writing this up, so that wasn't a big deal to leave out.

So what did the movie get right?  A lot, actually.

Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson did fantastic as Oskar and Eli, respectively.  Both really captured who the character was and brought it on screen perfectly.  Both were born in 1995, so they must have been 11 or 12 (I think?) when the movie was filmed, and for both of them, according to IMDb, Let The Right One In was the first film they had acted in.  So major congrats to both of them for an excellent job in this movie.  (I would also just like to add, they both looked the way the characters were described in the book, unlike in the American version of the movie.  Take notes from foreign films like this, America, and actually make the characters look like they're supposed to.  Ok?  Thanks.)

Surprisingly, I liked how the movie was almost sort of a romance as well sort of horror.  I don't know, I don't like sorting it as "horror" because it's not really a horror film, but I don't know what else to classify it as.  The relationship, from friendship to more, between Oskar and Eli was beautiful.  The way their relationship built over the course of the movie was just done so well.  This was one aspect I liked better about the movie than the book.  The book was, I thought, much less centered on what there was between Oskar and Eli.  It was like it was there, but at the same time it wasn't.  But with the movie, it was all there.

The way the movie looked was amazing.  There was a couple scenes where all I could say was "Wow" because they just looked so... perfect.  The scene where Virginia burst into flames, The color, brightness, and vividness of the fire against the plain hospital walls was just.. I don't even.. awesome.  And when Eli's face was covered in blood, and she was talking to Oskar, she was looked downright scary.  How scary can an eleven year old girl really look?  Terrifying.  It was great!  The very end scene, with Oksar leaving on the train (with Eli in the trunk/suitcase, safely hidden from the sunlight) was beautiful.  Oskar, just looking forward, looking to the future with the scenery rushing past his face, young and scared, yet somehow older and wiser than he was at the beginning, was (as I just said) beautiful.

The music in the movie made it ten times better than it would have been.  Whoever was in charge of choosing the music for this movie, I love your taste in music.  With the end scene (not right at the very end, but a little bit before.  The scene right before the very end.  After the pool scene, but before the train scene) the music fit so perfectly, it was like it was made for that scene.  (Was it?  Probably not, but it's possible, right?).

The overall rating I'd give this movie is somewhere between a 7 and an 8.5.

Would I watch it again? Absolutely.

Is it one of my favorite movies?  No, not by any means.

Read the book though.  You won't be disappointed.