Let the Right One In is a film about an outcast child who gets picked on at school and becomes friends with the vampire girl who moves in next door to him.

When I write about a film, I do everything I can to not let any plot details, or to expound upon any scenes specifically as to give the viewer an idea about if the film is any good or not, and also to allow him/her go in fresh; as clueless to the content of the picture as they would be merely reading a plot synopsis or seeing a few ads. With the opening statement to this review however, I have failed you, and consciously so. Let the Right One In has nothing more to offer you than what I've mentioned.

This is sad, because if the filmmakers had capitalized on what is a strong set up, they would have had a lovely little picture here. The concept is a strong mix of coming-of-age and horror, and the opportunity to explore the moral objection of a twelve-year-old conflicting with a budding sexual attraction is an intriguing idea. But the filmmakers seemed to have the idea itself and no substance that should have come with it. Let the Right One In is all pitch, and no payoff.

Consider the main character in the film (“Oskar” played by Kare Hedebrant). He is bullied and picked on in school, and spends his time outside of it fantasizing about revenge. But is there something wrong with him? Hedebrant plays Oskar as though he may be autistic, and I can't see it as being intentional. He is mystified by a Rubik's Cube, and takes his beatings and does nothing about it. When he goes swimming, he floats mouth open in the water. Does he like the taste of chlorine? He offers Eli (the vampire girl, played by Lina Leandersson) little in the way of intelligent discourse, and offers the audience very little in the way of personality or emotional expression.

And Eli. What of her? She lets slip that she may be much older than her twelve-year-old body will suggest. Wouldn't that mean that she would have grown up somewhere along the way? Just because her body hasn't matured, it doesn't mean her mind wouldn't. Yet she acts like a child. A vampire-child yes, but a child nonetheless. If this is an act in order to get Oskar to trust her, it is never revealed to us as such. There is a relationship between Eli and her “father” that I think is a much more interesting one than between her and Oskar, but it is glazed over much too quickly and isn't given the play it deserves.

There are scenes that are really quite neat by themselves, and I can see how people would be trapped by a somewhat romantic aesthetic without being discontent that there is no meat behind it. I just don't think that the people involved with this movie were as sensitive to what they had as they should have been. Perhaps if Let the Right One In was joyous in some way; if it had a lightness or whimsy, I would have been able to excuse it its shortcomings. But it's relentlessly melancholic, and the only character it gives me to identify with (or even like) isn't on screen for long enough. In the end, the lack of foresight involved in the logic of the relationship between the two main characters and how each reacts to the other, kills what could have been a good, unique little picture. It's a shame.