Let the Right One in

A wintry and rather miserable suburb of Stockholm in the early 1980s. Oskar Eriksson is a very normal and lonely 12-year-old. He undergoes the annoying bullying of his classmates as best he can. Back home, where he lives alone with his mother, he collects newspaper cuttings about serial killers and things like that. On a tree not far from his home, a dead boy is found, who seems to have been ritually murdered. At the same time, Oskar meets Eli, who has moved into an apartment next door together with an older man – and we soon assume he is the father. Little Eli is lonely as Oskar is, and the two make friends.
Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, an enormous bestseller back home in Sweden now conquering the world, this film version by Alfredson (Four Shades of Brown) is sure to contribute to that international success. On its own, it is a superb film. Let the Right One in (the title is borrowed from Morrissey’s song Let the Right One Slip In) is sometimes gruesome, shocking and scary, but above all with his atmospheric, intelligent fable about growing up rejection, friendship and fate, Alfredson revitalises the old vampire theme in a moving, literary way. Beautifully shot by the Dutch-Swedish cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema. (GT)

• 

•