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Let the Right One In (2008) RR
One of my favorite films and quite likely the holder of #1 spot on my lists at the moment.
12-year-old Oskar is a lonely kid who's bullied at school. When a girl his age moves to his neighbor with her caretaker he finds himself a friend. But there's something wrong with Eli, something dangerous and dark and violent. Do two lonely souls find comfort in each other or does the cruel world tear them apart.
Let the Right One In is very minimalist film that doesn't offer brilliant bright colors and wild tracking shots but grey ugliness of the real world and steady well placed shots. It's also very economic in its storytelling and doesn't waste practically a single second of its duration (some elements from the book are missing but other than that it's also very faithful filming).
Acting is great from the whole cast. Oskar feels like a school shooter or a psychopath in the making and as a whole is quite perfect mix of being hurt and wanting to hurt. Eli feels even more lonely than Oskar but she's also strong and fully aware of how effective tool violence can be, and her eyes are so expressive. Håkan, the local bar patrol and the bullies are also good in their roles.
I love how the film defies genre definitions. It's usually described as horror and while it certainly has horror elements I don't think it's primarily that. For me it's mostly a dark romantic drama with supernatural elements and horror imagery. It's style and themes are just so close to what I've had in mind if my writing ambition ever goes past aspirations (I think one of the reasons it hit me so hard is because it feels so familiar to me).
There's only two things worth critique in the film. First is the horrible CGI cat scene. It looks quite ridiculous and should have been toned down a lot to prevent that. Second issue is that approximately one second shot that I always pretend doesn't exist (the only thing the US remake does better is to skip that topic completely). Other than those two it's practically a perfect movie.
One of my favorite films and quite likely the holder of #1 spot on my lists at the moment.
12-year-old Oskar is a lonely kid who's bullied at school. When a girl his age moves to his neighbor with her caretaker he finds himself a friend. But there's something wrong with Eli, something dangerous and dark and violent. Do two lonely souls find comfort in each other or does the cruel world tear them apart.
Let the Right One In is very minimalist film that doesn't offer brilliant bright colors and wild tracking shots but grey ugliness of the real world and steady well placed shots. It's also very economic in its storytelling and doesn't waste practically a single second of its duration (some elements from the book are missing but other than that it's also very faithful filming).
Acting is great from the whole cast. Oskar feels like a school shooter or a psychopath in the making and as a whole is quite perfect mix of being hurt and wanting to hurt. Eli feels even more lonely than Oskar but she's also strong and fully aware of how effective tool violence can be, and her eyes are so expressive. Håkan, the local bar patrol and the bullies are also good in their roles.
I love how the film defies genre definitions. It's usually described as horror and while it certainly has horror elements I don't think it's primarily that. For me it's mostly a dark romantic drama with supernatural elements and horror imagery. It's style and themes are just so close to what I've had in mind if my writing ambition ever goes past aspirations (I think one of the reasons it hit me so hard is because it feels so familiar to me).
There's only two things worth critique in the film. First is the horrible CGI cat scene. It looks quite ridiculous and should have been toned down a lot to prevent that. Second issue is that approximately one second shot that I always pretend doesn't exist (the only thing the US remake does better is to skip that topic completely). Other than those two it's practically a perfect movie.