Let Me In

This film is an American remake of the Swedish film, “Let the Right One in”by Tomas Alfredson, which swept international awards before it a little over two years ago. It tells the story of a 12-year old boy, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who is bullied at school and forms an attachment to a mysterious young girl, Abbey (Chloe Moretz), who happens to be a vampire. Abbey and Owen live in apartments next door to each other. It is a horror film with lots of violence, as one expects from any vampire movie, but the film departs from the usual genre in also being a sensitive story of two isolated children, who form a relationship to each other. The dependence on the same book with the film’s title by Ajvide Lindqvist is high. The culture of the film is different. It is set in Los Alamos, New Mexico, but the mood remains the same. Owen is neglected by his parents, as well as being bullied savagely at school, and he enters a world where his loneliness matches Abbey’s own tragic isolation.Abbey requires blood to stay alive and the person who looks after her (Richard Jenkins) kills people to supply it to her. Cara Buono plays the role of Owen’s mother, who has no way of coping with what is happening to her son, and curiously, Matt Reeves, as director, never shows her face in focus. Despite the fact there is gore and blood everywhere, the relationship between the two children is depicted touchingly and sensitively. Moretz and Smit-McPhee are outstanding as the two children, eclipsing the adults around them in the quality of their acting. Abbey is a monster, and Owen is drawn into her world as they strive for the affection that both of them need. Owen faces the moral dilemma of giving into his inclination for violence, which is being fed by his attraction to Abbey, or breaking his attachment to her and turning back to reality to get a hold on life. The images of Owen tell his story, and they require little dialogue to make their point, while Abbey manages to capture just right the vulnerability of a 12-year old, who has been 12 many times. The contamination of innocence (represented by Owen) through contact with evil (represented by Abbey) underlies the entire film.