Image Credit: Saeed AdyaniAs a great fan of the melancholy, Swedish, lonely-boy-meets-vampire-girlfriend film Let the Right One In, I was apprehensive when an American remake was announced. Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 original is so essentially Scandinavian in landscape and temperament that I couldn’t imagine how the tone (let alone the topography) could be exported without damage to the film’s sunless delicacy. Good news out of the Toronto Film Festival: As written and directed by Cloverfield‘s Matt Reeves, Let Me In — that’s the remade title of the remake — manages to be both satisfyingly gloomy and American gothic. 
In fact, devotees of Alfredson’s movie may be rattled by the eerie visual similarities in the English-language version. We’re in a sad apartment complex in early 1980s Los Alamos now (Los Alamos, with the area’s nuclear and scientific associations, is a nice touch, as are glimpses of President Reagan on the TV). But it’s still cold, dark, depressing, and confusing to be a vulnerable adolescent who can’t rely on adult support. And a bullied 12-year-old boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) still meets his unlikely, bloodsucking soulmate (Chloe Grace Moretz) when she is perched, barefoot, on monkeybars in a crummy outdoor playground. And it’s still a heartbreaking thrill when boy asks vampire-girl to go steady.
Young Moretz from Kick-Ass and Smit-McPhee from The Road carry their scenes with tremendous poise. And Richard Jenkins, playing the girl’s guardian/blood procurer, is terrific. For a movie that, in its singularity, had no need to be remade, this one has been (whew) remade with elegance. Incidentally, in the original, the kids were named Eli and Oskar. Now they’re called Abby and Owen. Is it way far-fetched to think that the boy’s name is a twisted wave to my colleague, Owen Gleiberman, in recognition of his own controversial pan of Let the Right One In? Oooh, eerie.
This and The Social Network open on October 1, sounds like a good weekend.
I like this. My girlfriend is 300 years older than me and we met at undeadeaddate. com
No one else commented? I thought it was funny.
I think most people saw it and assumed it was a spam comment! I laughed.
LMAO! Nice, Owen.
“Ma” just doesn’t get irony, does she?
sweet
Glad to hear it since I’ve been looking forward to this film. The young actors have also been stand-outs in their previous films.
What is this trend with remaking Swedish films in our own image? First this one and next year David Fincher releases GWTDT. Honestly, it is time for America to embrace foreign film!
This is a sign of America embracing foreign films as a potential to reach a larger audience than they do. I don’t think I would call Fincher’s GWTDT a remake of a film though since it’s a direct adaptation of the book not the film.
It’s sort of cyclical…if we’re on Swedish films right now, we were DEFINITELY on Japanese horror films in the early part and middle of the past decade.
Japanese remakes were getting ruined. The Uninvited was disappointing, and One Missed Call was atrocious garbage.
…hey, I didn’t say they were any good (even though I’m a big fan of “The Ring”)…I just said they were happening.
Nothing new here at all. Google “Yojimbo” and “A Fistful of Dollars” or “La Cage Aux Folles” and “The Birdcage.”
The Seven Samauri and the Magnificant Seven blew me away the first time I saw them back to back.
I am SO excited about this film!!!!!! i love the original, love the book, and this looks great. I don’t hate it automatically just because it’s a remake. Give it a chance!
For me it kind of misses the point of the book and original movie. This remake only explores one option of the original movie, that wasn’t present in the book. Where the original had a beautiful ambiguity to it, that would appease both the book lovers and fans of the sort of story. It also had something for people with a more linear and somewhat cyclical way of looking at things. The book was also a brilliant coming of age, unique love story. The original film supported both this, and the Reeve’s Abbey is going to take you, groom you, then toss you aside when someone new comes along. However to only push that one option of it, seems to be missing the point of both(clearly one) of his inspirations. I’m only hoping people read the book before checking out the original film, otherwise they will be going in with a somewhat corrupted view of it.
Actually, this movie it’s not a remake. It’s a readaptation of Linqvist’s book, not a remake of the Swedish movie.
David, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The book and the film are very different, and Reeves opted to just pursue a shot-for-shot remake of the latter.
No, it’s a remake. It follows one interpretation of the original movie that wasn’t found in the book. The producer has stated it’s a remake openly. Reeves while vague, has still acknowledged remake too. It’s actually has less to do with the book than the original movie did, and in at least one instance, Abbey accepting the candy. It’s directly lifted from the original film. Where in the book Eli just simply refuses.
David, you clearly haven’t read the book. It’s funny reading people present OTHER people’s incorrect assumptions as their own on these boards.
“lonely-boy-meets-vampire-girlfriend”
Boy, you really missed something, didn’t you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Right_One_In_%28film%29#Screenplay
Of course, all of that is cut from the remake.
It’s no longer “controversial” when Owen pans a great film; just the norm. Nobody pays attention to the EW reviews. But I’m sure Ol’ Owen will give this one a pass with flying colors–that is, if it’s bad enough for him to like it.
Hit Girl rocks!
Swedes are taking over the U.S. – pretty soon ABBA will be running the supreme court and every retail store will be an IKEA subsidiary. I just hope this doesn’t mean that Ace of Base is about to make a comeback.
I saw the sign…and it points to “Not A Chance”.
“Eerie visual similarities?” Sounds like they just copied the original frame by frame and had american kids playing the parts. That’s weak. This movie sounds like a waste of time.
It’s the Toronto INTERNATIONAL Film Festival – you kinda look stupid not knowing that.