LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Låt den rätte komma in)

Make sure you don't miss this film.  It's absolutely spell-binding and riviting throughout and a welcome antedote to the lightweight, if admittedly entertaining Twilight.  I've already ordered the Blu-ray version from America on the strength of it - remember this film was released in early 2008 but has only received a cinema release in the UK this year.  The fact that it is subtitled probably played a part in the late release as it is consigned to a "foreign" film  - of course films from the USA are never foreign!  What is great about the film is that it has been released in the multiplex mainstream  and not confined to the art-house circuit of cinemas.

For a full synopsis visit the imperious IMDB; all I would like to add is that the film works on so many levels: a fantastic mixture of social realism - set on a sink housing estate in Stockholm in the early 1980s and fantasy/horror. At its  heart it's a love story and an unconventional one at that.  Yet it isn't  your typical boy/girl falls for Vampire story. I've read the book the film is based on and I won't spoil it for you but there is a further dimension to Oskar and Eli's relationship.  This is subtly alluded to in the film but is explicit in the novel.

The relationship between Eli and Hakan is also fleshed out (pardon the pun!) in the book with the idea of the child grooming the adult extremely subversive.  There is enough subtlety and scope in both the book and the film to leave the reader/viewer wondering whether Eli's love for Oskar is as unconditional Oskar's is for her or does she merely need a replacement for Hakan to serve her until he too growns old and incompetent?  Even Hakan was young once...

Another side-product to reading the book was that it reminded me of the halcyonic days when Stephen King wrote great books.  Reading John Ajvide Lindqvist's  book took me back to those times. I've just bought his latest novel "Handling the Undead" and will just have to try and find sometime to read it!

Lindqvist also wrote the screenplay which also shows he has another string to his bow and succeeds where many film adaptations of Stephen King novels fail.  Special mention to Tomas Alfredson's excellent direction with his superb use of sound to create a tonal edginess throughout the film.  I particulalry like the subtedly of the scene where Eli and Oskar meet for the first time and she jumps from the top of a climbing frame at least two metres and lands with grace and agility.  It is all so understated and underplayed that you wonder whether you actually witnessed her doing it.

You'll probably already know that the title for the book and film comes from a Morrissy song.