A much cooler international cover
But never fear. This is not your glittery vampire novel. This is not your cliché love story, where boy-meets-girl, boy-acts-douche and girl-falls-in-love and it’s all soapy and gooey and overall ridiculous.
It’s a story about a boy who’s constantly bullied at school. It’s a story about growing up and not having any friends. It’s also a story about a pedophile and his shame, a girl who was once a boy, a rebellious teenager and a boy who finds comfort in the macabre.
Let the Right One In was made into a movie in 2008 by director Tomas Alfredson, also in Swedish and of the same name.
A short synopsis of the book and movie:
Oskar is a 12-year-old boy who lives with his single mother. He’s constantly bullied at school, but to be fair, he’s a bit of an eccentric kid. He’s got an uncontrollable bladder and rather meek. He also keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings dealing with various murders and killers. He eventually makes friends with the new girl next door named Eli, who lives with what appears to be her guardian Hakan. Oskar and Eli form a tentative friendship, which gives Oskar some more confidence and Eli a kind of friendship that she hasn’t experienced quite a long time. And by the way, Eli is a vampire. No, it’s not technically a spoiler because you find out rather quickly. The rest of the novel deals with Oskar’s bullying, Eli’s need for blood and other minor characters that are just as interesting.
The movie is an incredibly satisfying cinematic treat. I would go so far as to call it, like many critics have said, the definitive vampire flick of 2008. The plot of the movie is described above and it does indeed deliver. It’s eerie and sentimental all in one. Oskar is wonderfully pathetic and endearing. Oskar’s fascination with serial killers and murders is an incredibly interesting aspect to his character. It’s noteworthy to wonder if his fascination came as a coping method for the bullying or if it’s been there all along. He’s also the character the audience is supposed to identify with the most, but how is the majority of the audience supposed to identify with a kid pretending to knife a tree and wishing it was his tormentors? What probably eases the audience into liking Oskar so much is his age—Lindqvist chose that perfect age of adolescences where just about any behavior can be excused to hormones and puberty.
The movie poster
The movie leaves a lot of the minor characters out. Jocke is the rebellious teenager and friend of Oskar who pretends to feel indifferent to his mother’s new boyfriend. Hakan’s past is left out and his affinity for young children is much more ambiguous in the movie than in the novel. It doesn’t delve as deeply into Eli’s past, nor does it address the aftermath of the Hakan’s “death”. It does however, take the essentials of the novel and present them very well. The ending is probably much more satisfying in the movie than in the novel. Both more or less end the same, but Alfredson uses his artistic license to add in some bad-assery to an already bad-ass storyline.
Both should be watch immediately. And I think it’s pretty acceptable to watch the movie with the book in mind. Look to the movie for a short and sweet and awesome vampire love story. Look to the book for much of the same with added histories and gory details.
And yes, because Hollywood can’t be satisfied with awesome movies that aren’t from America, there is a remake in progress. It’s called Let Me In and directed by Matt Reeves; Cloverfield is probably his most well-known directing achievement. Word on the street is that Reeves is planning to make a movie from the book, not the film so maybe we’ll have some light shed on the minor characters more. If this movie sucks, I’m going to write an angry letter.
Ramble Ramble Rambo 