Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” (Original title: Låt den rätte komma in, 2008) is one of the cult classics of Swedish cinema, offering a quieter and more psychological take on vampire films. While we are used to seeing formidable dark-clothed figures with elongated fangs and a mysterious aura as these ancient bloodsucking entities, the vampire of Alfredson’s film is a pale, twelve-year-old, androgynous kid called Eli.
Based on John Lindqvist’s book of the same name, the film focuses on Eli’s growing friendship with Oskar, a bullied kid from the town of Blackberg. Throughout the film, Eli’s presence haunted me: Are they real? Are they Oskar’s imaginary friend that he invented to deal with the trauma of being bullied? The film holds no stakes to prove either of the conjectures correct; its beauty lies in the lived moments of this friendship
Let the Right One In (2008) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Who is Eli?
The film begins with an enraged boy, Oskar, inside his room, cursing at invisible enemies. He calls them names, asks them to squeal like a pig. From his actions, it may seem like he is an aggressive kid, but it is quite the opposite. This is the outburst of Oskar’s pent-up rage from being bullied at school. He is mimicking the words the bullies directed at him. While he deals with his experience, a car pulls into the building. Enter Eli, with her caretaker Hakan. Eli moves into the next apartment to Oskar’s. The first time they meet is on a snow-clad field in front of the apartment.
Oskar tries to solve a Rubik’s Cube, while Eli declares that the two cannot be friends. Eli’s restraint has probably been developed through her countless years of being “more or less twelve”. While vampires remain the age they were when they became vampires for years, not aging, I believe they do get lonely. Despite declaring a non-friendship disclosure, Eli takes the Rubik’s Cube from Oskar. More so, the next day Eli brings it solved to Oskar. The two tidy up, take a bath, and Eli almost looks like someone who could be Oskar’s friend. Oskar, who is badly in need of one, starts feeling comfortable in Eli’s presence.
While the two grow gradually closer during the film, not much about Eli is known in the beginning. Eli arrives accompanied by a man called Hakan. Hakan is seemingly her caretaker and provides for Eli while they stay cooped up in the apartment during the daytime. While the film does not follow the traditional vampire narrative, it does have the same laws that apply to most vampires in the media: the vampires burst into flames when exposed to sunlight, they cannot come in without being invited, and they need blood to survive. Let’s find out how Eli survives.
Who Kills Jocke?
In addition to being Eli’s caretaker, Hakan also hunts for Eli. At the beginning of the film, Eli expresses their anger toward Hakan, saying that they have to look after themselves. While it felt like a child accusing their father of being reluctant, soon it is revealed how exactly the dynamic unfolds between Eli and Hakan. Hakan is Eli’s extended fangs; he keeps them fed and fulfilled. For that, Hakan has to be the one murdering people. Right after Eli arrives, Hakan goes into the woods and finds a man to drain the blood out of.
Although he kills him, he is unable to drain the blood when other people pass by. Out of hunger, Eli preys on a local man called Jocke. Eli sits helplessly under an underpass asking for help, and when Jocke approaches to carry them, they bite on his neck, draining his blood. While Eli is fed, Hakan deals with the consequences of the murder. He pulls the body and drowns it in a lake covered by ice. While Eli murdered Jocke, a man caught this from his window. However, the incident goes unreported. There are rumours spread that a little girl killed Jocke, but it remains a rumour.
Meanwhile, Eli and Oskar’s friendship grows as they invent a Morse code to communicate through the shared wall between their apartments. Hakan, who does not really like this friendship, goes to hunt for Eli again, asking her not to meet Oskar. As Hakan traps a boy in the schoolroom and hangs him from the ceiling, other students almost walk in on him. Hakan hides, but he fears getting identified by one of the boys who had seen him.
He pours a glass of acid on his face so that he cannot be identified. Hakan is admitted to the hospital. Eli visits the hospital and asks the receptionist which floor their ” papa ” is admitted to. Once the receptionist confirms the floor, Eli climbs the building to Hakan’s window. Failing to provide for Eli’s hunger, Hakan offers Eli his neck. Eli feeds on Hakan, and once they are done, Hakan falls to his death from the window.
Is Eli a Girl?
After Hakan’s death, who is the second one to die at Eli’s hands, Eli visits Oskar. Oskar asks Eli to be his girlfriend, but Eli answers that they are not a girl. The novel seems to focus on Eli’s androgyny and provides a more detailed explanation of how Eli lost her genitals, but the film stays limited to a glance at Eli’s scar. Oskar’s friendship with Eli takes on a romantic turn in the way romance is defined for twelve-year-olds. Eli asks Oskar to stand up to his bullies. In a field trip, Oskar hits one of his bullies on the ear, making him deaf. Jocke’s body, which Hakan dumped in the lake, surfaces during this field trip.
Oskar is thrilled by his newfound ability to resist bullying and has Eli to thank for it. He takes Eli to a secret alleyway and wants to form a bloodbond by pressing their slashed hands together. While Eli tried washing up, taking a candy from Oskar, she could not resist the sight of blood. She asks Oskar to run away while she licks the blood off the floor. With Hakan absent, Eli’s hunger grows again, which leads to her third kill.
How Does Virginia Die?
Virginia is Jocke’s friend, Lacke’s girlfriend. As Lacke discusses the uncanniness of Jocke’s death, Virginia leaves the apartment to go home. This is when Eli jumps onto Virginia, trying to feed on her. However, Lacke saves Virginia just in the nick of time. However, Virginia starts to feel her body changing. She visits her friend with an apartment full of cats, who sense this change and attack her.
Virginia is taken to the hospital, and when Lacke comes to visit, she asks him to kill her. While Lacke refuses to do it, the next morning, when Virginia is ready for her release, she asks the doctor to open the blinds for her to let the sunlight in. As soon as sunlight touches her body, Virginia’s body goes up in flames. Lack, who sensed foul play in Eli, now has more reasons to hunt and kill her. While Eli is being hunted by Lacke, Oskar is not safe either.
Let the Right One In (2008) Movie Ending Explained:
Do Oskar and Eli End Up Together?
Lacke tries to find Eli and ends up in her apartment, where he finds Eli asleep in the bathtub. Oskar intervenes and locks the door behind Lacke, and Eli feeds on him again. The killings and need for survival bring Eli and Oskar together, leading to a kiss. In a confrontation at Oskar’s apartment, Eli told Oskar that they are alike in the way that both need to kill for their survival. While Eli needs blood for survival, Oskar needs to kill to protect himself from his bullies. These are two kids teaming up together to face conditions that they have no control over, and they decide to confront them by means of violence.
However, violence often triggers violence in endless repetitions. Remember Oskar’s field day at school, where he hit the kid? Momentarily, he felt the pleasure of taking revenge for bullying, but even without knowing, he continued a cycle of violence. Oskar’s bullies invite him to the pool, and ask him to hold his breath for three minutes underwater to avenge the boy who lost his hearing at Oskar’s hand.
If Oskar fails to do it, the bully threatens to gouge his eyes out. As Oskar desperately holds his breath underwater, there is an abrupt sequence of severed limbs falling in water and someone pulling him up by his hair. It is Eli. Eli comes to Oskar’s rescue, killing everyone and saving his life. After leaving this bloodbath, Eli cannot stay in town any longer. The film ends with Oskar travelling in a train with a box at his feet. Eli taps the code for “kiss” from inside the box, and Oskar taps back.
Let the Right One In (2008) Movie Themes Analysed:
Violence for Survival
While guised in the garb of a vampire film, “Let the Right One In” is actually a story of survival. Eli and Oskar are children who have no control over the marginalisation that they face. This marginalisation becomes their way of understanding each other. While Eli is defined as a “vampire” by their biological condition of surviving on blood, a label Eli does not fully identify with (when asked whether they are a vampire, Eli answers that they need blood to survive), Oskar is labelled as the weak, bullied kid at school. The isolation pushes Eli and Oskar so far into the margins that the only thing they learn to guard themselves is through violent survival.
The film also reflects on the cyclical nature of violence. Once a bloodshed is initiated, it continues through constant repetitions; Oskar, who was subject to bullying, becomes a bully himself, and it ends up in a blood bath. On the other hand, Eli requires a keeper to survive. They teach them the same language of violence-for-survival that they know and prepare them for lifelong keeping. Eli probably got Hakan in the same way to be their keeper that they got Oskar now. While individuals perish, Eli does not; they just find another vessel for surviving long enough.
At times during the film, I’ve felt that a more symbolic reading should be attempted. Eli does feel like a symbolic friend that trauma-survivors come up with to shield themselves, teach themselves a useful skill or two. It could be a case of Oskar’s PTSD, or Multiple personalities. Eli’s androgyny would only make this argument stronger that they are not really separate from Oskar. While this is a possible reading, I would not want to deprive the audience of the strange, melancholic romance that unfolds between two misfits, now probably travelling to a wishful island of toys in that train!
