The movie takes place in Sweden and the setting is almost monochromatic with white snow against dark grayish buildings. The snow looks soft and still flaky. Even when it's not falling, you have the impression of it falling, which adds a dreamlike quality to the film.
The main human character Oskar has this very blonde dutch boy hair cut and an almost bubbling happiness about him, despite his ill treatment. Eli the looks-12-but-200 year old vampire is ethereal, almost godlike in beauty, and impossible to not watch. All of this, combined with scenes of almost comical villagers, the sweetness of first love, and moments of rather graphic violence, lull you into a sense of understanding what the horror is about, only to be slapped in the face by it in the end.
So it was with some, okay, with vast, apprehension that I received the news that there would be an American version of the film, Let Me In. Aghh! I even hated the name change. This was a minor detail, admittedly, but enough to begin what I knew would be a long list of things that altered the movie into something that was nothing like the dream scape of the original.
This didn't stop me from watching it though. I am many things, cinema slut among them. Despite my lack of attention span, I watched Let Me In over the last two nights and at the end of it, felt I could only express how I felt about it by writing this.
There were certain things they Americanized. Oskar became Owen. Eli became Abby. The setting changed from Sweden to a wintery New Mexico. The year, which seemed, at least to me, to have little bearing on the original was very much 1983. Oddly, where it doesn't seem to matter in LTROI, it matters in the remake. It actually accentuates the remake, giving a nice layer to it. LMI feels very 1983 and if you were alive and aware in 1983, you are drawn back there, into that time and how you felt. If you were anywhere near Owen's age, you find yourself understanding him completely.
With the exception of some altered or deleted scenes, Americanizing of setting and names, and the absence of Eli/Abby's questionable gender, the movie is basically the same. However, on very fundamental levels, it is completely different. The Voice and Point of View from LMI is altered and the themes explored and expressed have changed. Let the Right One In is a movie about a boy who falls in love with a dream girl who is really a monster, but he accepts this. Let Me In is about the painful depths of awkwardness.
The center of the awkwardness is Owen. Kodi Smith-McPhee does a cringingly perfect job as the young social outcast. Smith-McPhee is actually a beautiful child and manages to make his features work completely against him as Owen. His phrasing, which comes off as stilted and mouth-breathing, and shy looks, slightly off-timed interactions, and, ohhh the worst, his attempts to look cool, add up to That Kid we all remember from school. The one who was alone except when he was being picked on. The one who was so awkward even the other social-outcasts couldn't relate to him. The kid who you wish would at some point say the right thing, but never could. Yeah, that kid. Owen is him.
Owen can't relate to Drunk Religious Mama, who is mostly concerned with drinking, praying, and getting her divorce from Owen's father. The father, who we never actually see, just hear on a phone conversation, is less concerned for Owen than he is with his constant battle with the soon-to-be ex. Owen is the target of the bullies at school and pretty much ignored by everyone else. He has a weird haircut, a billowy silver coat, won't get in the swimming pool, and fairly girlish features. All of these things add up to him spending most of his time alone, eating Now & Laters (and singing the theme song, which, again, cringe), watching for boobies in his telescope, or pretending to exact revenge on his enemies by stabbing knives into things.
And while much of this is uncomfortable to creepy, Owen has a level of realism to him that draws you into the story. I hate movies where kids come off as more sophisticated than they should (unless there is a good reason for it) or ones who are fake-awkward but you know they'll end up winning in the end. With Owen, you honestly don't think the kid has a chance.
As much as I loved the dreamlike quality of the original movie, this agonizing shove into reality with the remake is great. The introduction scene (which sets up the horror element and I honestly think could have been cut from the movie) is nothing compared to our first minutes with Owen. This is when the remake finds its own voice . . . and that voice is not pretty.
The awkwardness of reality dictates this movie. It is the center of everything. Even Abby, the beautiful and graceful vampire child, can't escape it. Where most vampire movies, even the ones where the vampires are seen as the bad guys, tend to give the vampires charm and grace, in this movie, those matter very little. Every aspect of Abby's vampire nature serves only to set her apart, to make her the same level of social outcast as Owen. There is never a moment of "Wow, you're a vampire and that's so cool." It is always "Wow, you're a vampire and that sucks because vampires are monsters."
Being a monster isn't a moral judgement either. Almost everyone in this movie, to a greater or lesser extent, is a "monster" in their own right. Abby's, however, forces her to make others into victims. The Now & Later jingle of "eat some now, save some for later" becomes darkly true with her. Kill the human for blood right now or keep them around and watch them destroy themselves because of you.
Abby tells Owen that they can't be friends. He thinks it's because she, like almost everyone else, hates him for whatever injustice in the universe has made him unlikable. She knows it's because she is a monster, and humans, no matter how hard she tries, will never truly be friends. Never again. She doesn't seem to feel guilt over the people she kills outright. For the one she keeps with her, who is forced to live their life as her mortal companion, it isn't clear if she feels remorse or just fear at the idea of them leaving her. Probably both.
In her companion, who Owen at first believes to be her father, we see the the dark realism of the movie truly become horrific. All too often in our depictions of killers and people who are violent, the scenes of violence are without flaw. They are planned out with perfect calculation and go off without a hitch. The "father" seems to live under Murphy's Law. Every attempt to obtain blood for Abby goes wrong. The last attempt, due to the randomness of the universe, goes so badly wrong that he has to die.
Well, let me rephrase that. He didn't have to die. He chooses to die, first by pouring acid on his face and then by jumping to his death, so that Abby can be protected. He knows his life is awful. He has a idea that he is soon to be replaced, but he is still so loyal to her, so captivated by her, that he would choose to die for her. In the end, being near the monster takes him down as well.
The most horrifying part about the Father character is that by the end of the movie, we know that in watching the last days of his life, we are more than likely seeing Owen's future. Owen, who never had much of a life to begin with, will now trade away all of his possibilities so that Abby can be taken care of and protected. He is now hers.
We know he loves her. We know she saved his life, and, actually, gave his life meaning. However, because we just watched the fate of her last care-taker, we know what will follow for Owen. Fifty, maybe sixty years of poverty and constant travel. No real home, no real career, only the fear for Abby's safety and the need to fulfill the constant demands of her hunger. When he has outlived his usefulness, she will seek a new companion and he will die for her.
The vampire, as a cultural metaphor, can mean a lot of things. Sometimes the vampire is return to the wild and chaotic needs of our base nature. Bram Stoker's Dracula is far more Dionysus than anything else. Sometimes the vampire is a metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases or for some political party or why people shouldn't be taxed so much.
In the case of Let Me In, the vampire is analogous to all the destructive relationships we get into as youth as a way to try and escape the bad home life we have. We find someone who we think needs us, who we think will protect us, and most of all, who will help us remove ourselves from the life we have. Unfortunately, what we tend to forget is that these people who need us will always need more and more.....and eventually, we just won't have anything left to give.
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