Let Me In (Review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Over a  year ago my friend Nadia raved about a Swedish vampire movie titled Let The Right One In.  After watching it, my own praise for this film became extravagant.  Then came the day I got to read the novel.  It too proved marvelous.

News of an English-language version.  I am not someone who rejects things out-of-hand without some good reason.  Had Joel Shumacher, for example, been attached as director I'd've been nauseous.  Ditto George Lucas, Uwe Boll, a dozen others any of us could easily name.  Yet Matt Reeves was both writing and directing the film.  Matt Reeves of Cloverfield fame.  Or infamy.  Depends on one's pov, yes?

Long story short (too late!) I felt cautiously optimistic.

Now that I've seen it, my feelings are a blend of "impressed" "thrilled" and "disturbed."  Impressed because this is a movie that captures the ruthless yet tender heart of the book at least as well as the first film.  Yes, at least as well.  "Thrilled" because this was not only a good retelling of the novel into a new medium, but in some ways a startlingly original version.  "Disturbed" because this film actually creeped me out in ways the Swedish motion picture did not.

At the core, novel and films explore loneliness--how it distorts while it tortures.  Owen, the main character (Kodi Smitt-McPhee in a performance that makes me long to see him as Hamlet in a decade's time), is a very bright but disturbed boy.  His parents are mid-divorce.  Father isn't present.  Mother (whom we never quite see) numbs herself with religious platitudes and wine.  Neither seem to have the slightest idea about their child's unhappiness.  Bullied viciously at school, Owen seethes with fear and rage.  He has begun to enter puberty, yet still gobbles up candy like a very small child.  Pleasure clearly exists in such tiny amounts, at least in Owen's life, he rarely hesitates when given any chance--even if it means spying on the pretty young wife in his apartment complex.  The wall in his bedroom says it all.  It shows a view of Earth from the cold landscape of the barren moon.

Enter Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz who stole the movie Kick Ass earlier this year as Hit-Girl).  Seemingly another lonely child.  In fact, she is precisely that, but is also a vampire, who-knows-how-old.  Her companion, a man people assume is her father (Richard Jenkins, a marvelous actor in his own right), is clearly devoted to Abby beyond words.  Beyond life.  Interestingly, in the first film my reaction to this character was "Pedophile."  Here I thought it pretty clear that he was once what Owen is now--a lonely child drawn into orbit around an even lonelier, much older and more dangerous semi-child.

Much will be made of the question--Does Abby care?  Is she pursuing a ruthless agenda of recruiting another caretaker as her previous one begins to fail?  Or as one relationship disintegrates, does she happen upon someone about whom she can genuinely feel affection, even love?  Methinks the answer to that question says most about the person giving the answer.  Let Me In keeps any possible final answer on that question ambiguous.

Yet there are hints.

Abby could lie to her Caretaker.  She does not.  At his end, she could have been ruthless instead of gentle.  She didn't have to keep those photos of him for Owen to find.  When her vampire-self began to take over, she managed to save Owen.  Yet she was also hovering around Owen at the end, waiting for the chance to save him from the bullies.

My own answer to that question is--both.  She was looking for a new Caretaker, and she found him in a boy she could love.  Possibly she loves Owen more than any other.  Maybe not.  But she needs him.  She wants him.  She feels for him.  All these and more wrapped up into one emotional package.  Life is complex like that.

But what really sticks in my mind is the ending.  Owen has found his friend, escaped from Los Alamos New Mexico, been saved from his tormentors and begun a new adventure as companion/familiar of a beautiful creature out of legend.  Yet he gobbles candy.  He sings an advertising jingle.  He remains a child, one who began this story disturbed in many ways and is he much better?  Happier, yes.  For now.  He's in love.  More, I believe he is loved.  No small thing.  But he has entered the same trap that Abby inhabits.  No matter how old he gets, how much growing up can he possibly achieve really?

She is an eternal little girl.  By choosing her, Owen has condemned himself to being an eternal little boy.  Even when his hair turns gray and his teeth fall out--still just a little boy.

A little boy who will kill for her, one day.  Just as she has killed for him.  Yet will never grow up.  Neither of them.  A little bit of heaven, maybe, on top of more than a few drops of pure hell.  For them both.

Technically I will say the rhythm of the story seemed slightly rushed in a few spots.  One gets the impression of scenes cut to keep the playing time a reasonable length.  Let us hear it for Director's Extended Cuts!  Likewise a time or two the beautiful musical score intruded (although barely--mostly it meshed perfectly with events and helped to create atmosphere virtually from frame one).  For those wishing to compare, this is in now way a shot-by-shot remake.  Neither is it a hack job.  The three actors at the heart of the film carry its burden and they do not stumble.  Jenkins and Moretz are already known to me as exceptional artists.  Smitt-McPhee, with whom I'm not familiar, is a revelation.

Vampire Movie Ingredients

Okay, this might sound silly. I daresay it probably is, all things considered. But just for a bit of fun, behold the elements that (in my entirely personal opinion) would go into making a really top-notch vampire movie. Be warned--imagination will overflow its banks now...

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Clearly you need a script, and often-times those are best derived from excellent source material. Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, Stoker's Dracula, Rice's Interview With The Vampire, Myers Twilight (not great, but plenty of fun and not-to-sneezed-at), Del Toro's The Strain. And since this is a personal fantasy, let us assume that the fantastically talented Sarah Waters has written a vampire novel which will now be adapted into a film. For those of you who don't know, Ms. Waters composed three (dare I say it) mini-masterpieces--Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith (this last is a personal favorite). Recently, Ms. Waters shifted the locale of her fiction from Victorian times to the Post-War period, and that is all very fine. But let us imagine she's written a vampire tale set in Victorian England, shall we? Yes, lets!

Next up, let us assign a director/screenwriter of considerable skill. Truth to tell, there are plenty of these to go around, but my choice would be Steven Shainberg, the gentleman who adapted and directed one of my favorite films--2002's Secretary.

As far as cast goes, we're somewhat limited here by not having actual plot or cast of characters. So let us instead just select a half-dozen high-quality thespians who have not in fact appeared in any Vampire film up until now. More, since our author is English, let us limit them (pretty much) to Brits:

Rachel Hurd Wood, for one, who was Wendy in Peter Pan as well as the female lead in Perfume: Story of a Murderer and will be in the upcoming Dorian Gray. She's been stuck more-or-less in ingenue roles for quite some time, but methinks she'd jump at the chance to play a vampire. Although she can also be a victim, or some other part.

Peter O'Toole for another--one of the greatest actors of his generation and of the next couple that followed! Still going strong despite his age, or because of it. He has made some of the silliest stuff imaginable (like Caligula) better by simply being there, and lent considerable gravitas and quality to already-high-end productions. I had the enormous good fortune of seeing him play Henry Higgins in Pygmalion on Broadway. He's fantastic in pretty much every single thing he's ever done.

Emma Watson is of course most famous for the Harry Potter movies but has done other things. In the latest film especially she's shown some real acting chops, and expressed willingness to take some real chances for the right director, the right role and the right script. The temptation is to make her this uber-bright tomboy or bookworm, but that would be a shame. While her intelligence does seem to shine through (hiding that sort of thing takes a specific knack, imho), there's no reason to type-cast her as Hermione Granger for the rest of her career. So, vampire? Or victim? Or someone else?
Viggo Mortensen was "discovered" when appearing in Lord of the Rings, but has been around for quite some time. He's an awesome actor and could play a variety of different roles with skill and style. Vampire, victim, innocent bystander, vampire-hunter, etc. It hardly matters. Of course it would all depend upon the actual script, but one can hardly doubt he'd be an asset. Give him a role and he's bound to do a lot with it. Remember, he'd never held a sword or even read Tolkien before being cast as Aragorn.

Another actress I admire very much is Tara Fitzgerald, who may be best known for her role in Sirens but frankly has done so very much more. A courageous performer who specializes in what she calls "strong women" I think she'd be a fantastic addition to any quality period piece, much less one about vampires. Again, she could play one of the undead herself or a victim or any one of a dozen other types. Since we're assuming Sarah Waters to be the author, I feel secure to suggesting whatever role she might play would be complex and a bit mind-expanding.

As for other qualities I'm looking for in this ideal vampire movie, let us add a few set pieces that tend to add a certain something. One is the creepy old house. Isolated in some way or other, probably by geography and certainly in terms of the psychology of its inhabitants. A place of unsettling history and dark secrets in the shadows -- everything poor Catherine thought Northanger Abbey to be but wasn't (or was, but not in the way she imagined). Certainly with its own name (Convent House? Thornkirk? John's Tower?) and probably more than one forgotten corner and/or secret passage.

Call me a purist if you like, but I also find coffins a pleasing set piece. While folklore never once suggests that vampires burn up when exposed to sunlight (that was movie-making and theatre, initially German and English respectively) most European legend does insist a vampire has some kind of special relationship with their grave. Carmilla had to sleep their each night. Dracula carried boxes of earth from his own tomb. Besides, there remains something aesthetically right about a vampire who sleeps in one of those specially designed pieces of furniture -- furniture for the dead. Yeah, it is gothic and a bit hokey but it also works. So I want the vampire (or vampires) to sleep in a coffin.

More I want the vampire in question to have fangs. One of the things I simply dislike very much about Twilight (and call me silly if you like) is the lack of fangs. Entirely personal, but there you are. While meter-long, insectoid stingers are plenty scary, they simply don't have the allure of what I look most in vampire movies (with apologies to Guillermo Del Toro).

Finally, what I really desire in vampire movies is a sense of eroticism tinged with horror. The best vampire movies to me show the vampire as seducer as well as predator. A nosferatu's victim should be addicted to the painful joy of the Kiss, attracted to the danger of an undead lover as well as fearful of where this must ultimately lead. Not in the sense of becoming a zombie, but that to experience the love/lust/hunger of a vampire personally is be changed--for better and for worse. "Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight" pretty much covers it. And that is what I most enjoy.

Anyway, that is what I'd really love to see.