In certain movie theaters, you’ll see a short ad before the film
that repeats, in about a dozen different languages, “The language of
film is universal.” It’s just the kind of pabulum that Seattle movie audiences love to hear—that somehow, by
sitting and watching a subtitle movie, you’re contributing to
the cause of global understanding and, eventually, world peace. But
anyone who’s seen the dregs of SIFF, the Tunisian epics that were
filmed for the equivalent of 50 American dollars, understands that not
all international film is universal. Plenty of Israeli family dramas
and Swedish coming-of-age films have passages whose inclusions flummox
American audiences. There’s a much more specific language of film
that’s universal: the genre film.
Let the Right One In is a recent Swedish movie that often
feels as though it could have been filmed in America. Oskar (Kåre
Hedebrant) is a 12-year-old boy who has been ostracized from just about
everyone in his school. His quiet disposition, and his tendencies to
take out a knife and violently attack his imaginary attackers at night,
suggest that he’s just the kind of boy who’s all too familiar to
American audiences: the quiet one who just snapped one day for no
particular reason. But aspects of the film—in particular the
cinematography, in which characters and actions are often shot from an
alarming distance in order to capture more of that slightly askew
Scandinavian light, and the behaviors, in which characters keep a
respectful and entirely un-American arm’s length from other people’s
business—can seem downright alien to us.
It’s a comfort, then, to American audiences when a brutal murder
happens early in the film. And though it’s not filmed in gory
CSI-style close-up, and though the camera keeps a polite Swedish
distance from the crime, Right One‘s primary language becomes
that of genre. Once Oskar befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson, giving the
kind of nuanced, intense performance that should make American child
actors shit themselves with envy), a 12-year-old girl the viewer almost
immediately recognizes is a vampire, we become comfortable with that
primary language, and we can watch with a kind of comfort that other
foreign films don’t command.
What does everyone around the world know about vampires who star in
movies? They require human blood in order to survive. Sunlight kills
them. They are prone to brooding and also to unfortunate romance. Most
of them can’t enter a house without being invited. As Eli befriends
Oskar, and her attention transforms him from a loner to a young man
flush with the first pulses of love, we know what’s coming: Death is
sure to follow.
But because we’ve been hypnotized by the pretense of genre, Right
One has enough wiggle room to play with our expectations without
seeming off-puttingly foreign. For a while, it seems as though the
movie is a gothic adaptation of E.T., with vampires in place of
aliens and a Rubik’s Cube as the method of seduction instead of Reese’s
Pieces. But as Oskar and Eli’s relationship progresses, and as our
genre-comforted sense of expectation is quietly turned on its head, we
don’t know what to make of things anymore. It’s impossible to choose
the good guys from the bad guys, and you wind up rooting for something
horrible to happen.
This isn’t some Shyamalan-esque twist-fest, but to talk too directly
about the specifics of Right One would rob it of some of its
inspiration, and therefore some of its charm, which means I have to be
vague. But there hasn’t been an American genre film this good in quite
some time. By taking nothing about the vampire legend for granted, and
by leaving great swaths of mysteries unsolved, Right One can
become a film about all kinds of things: the weird sexuality of
burgeoning adolescents, how anger and violence can sometimes be a
perfectly reasonable response in the proper situation, and how love is
always completely, seriously fucked-up.
Maybe the best part of Right One is that it doesn’t answer
all of its questions: It doesn’t seem as though anyone, on leaving the
movie, watched the same film as anyone else in the theater. And yet it
somehow manages to resolve all its promises of genre: It tells a
complete and satisfying vampire story, maybe one of the best vampire
stories put to film since Murnau’s Nosferatu, and still manages
to tell us something absolutely new in a language that we thought we
completely understood. 
I heard the goons from the “Cloverfield” and “Quarantine” films are going to remake this beautiful Swedish film. They can’t leave well enough alone–those herky-jerky camera fuckers.
Well said “Critic”, I second that.
What a great review. I enjoyed it so much that I want to say something more clever than that, but I can’t. Oh well.
I am sold. I will see this film.
“…there hasn’t been an American genre film this good in quite some time.” Yep. Faced with the endless parade of crap Hollywood churns out and people yacking on their cell phones in the theatre, I rarely go out to see movies anymore. It’s just not worth it. But this movie sounds like it deserves to be seen on a large screen. The picture alongside the review, mostly the dark eyes also grabbed me–no, I’m not some creepy guy–it drew me to read this review first.
It’s nice to have a reason to go back to a movie theatre.
This movie was like a fever dream that involves you on such an intense level. I loved every minute of it. Even the CGI wasn’t cheesy- except the cats.
This was arguably the best movie at SIFF this year. So great.
The movie desperately needed a different score. It felt like a soundtrack to a different movie.
I just saw it, it was perfect. And I am one nitpicky crabass.
I saw it yesterday. I really liked it. It was genuinely creepy but also poignant. Great cinematography too–nice use of white, no excessive gore.
I actually really liked the soundtrack. It was nicely understated.
I only took issue with one scene. I won’t say much about it because I don’t want to give anything away, but it involved many cats and CGI. Unconvincing and goofy, it fell out of tone with the rest of the film. Though the filmmaker’s use of humor during some disturbing moments worked really well, the funky, overly-obvious CGI in this scene killed it. (CGI has a way of making things–cats, in this case– look like they were squeezed out of a tube.) I found it distracting. But that’s my only criticism. Fortunately, the film was so good, I was able to get lost in it again once the scene was over.
Go see it.
That scene was hilarious. Down the stairs, bitch!
If I knew where the American directors planning the “American version” of this movie lived, I’d hunt them down and take them out, so they wouldn’t be able to ruin the singular wonder that is this movie. Okay, the cat scene was hokey, but otherwise, this flick was absolutely amazing. Maybe every two or three years I see a movie that I think is so great, I wish I could go back in time and see it again for the first time again. This is one of those movies. Stop reading this and go see it now.
I saw this movie over the weekend. Wow- it really was a love story first, horror movie second. Two opposites meeting and recognizing each had what the other lacked. This movie really moved me in it’s lyrical intensity and stark simplicity. Absolutely refreshing in it’s original approach I loathe to see what kind of butchered pile of wasted celluloid comes out of the American remake. Not to mention the “event” movie Twilight that’s got every Joe (Josephine) the Moviegoer creaming their Jockey’s in anticipation. It looks about as original as Saw IV or Freddy vs. Godzilla. Who gives a flying rat turd? Have some nuts and see the one movie that is an original vision and will stay with you long after the lights have come on….
There is no such thing as a polite Swedish arm length distance. Swedish people have no concept of personal space, that is much more of an American thing. I havent seen the film, but just thought you should know that the distance thing is NOT Swedish. I know. I live there.
I concur.
I wish I could go back in time and see it again for the first time too!
AMAZING film. One of the best I’ve ever seen. In my mind, the supernatural elements of it are frosting on the cake, as they take on life and the issues of childhood head on.
So good.