Let the Right One In

Film Info

Sweden 2009 | 114 min. Director: Tomas Alfredson

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Let the Right One In

Synopsis

LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN is a story both violent and highly romantic, set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1981. Oskar is 12 and being bullied. His sadistic classmates Conny, Martin and Andreas torment him beyond reason. Oskar has recurring fantasies about revenge, about being strong, about defiance. One evening he is standing in the playground jabbing his knife into a tree, whispering the name of his tormentors. Suddenly, a girl is standing on the climbing frame – a girl his own age whom he has never seen before. Her name is Eli and she is full of contradictions – her wise look, her strange smell, that fact that she is wearing such thin clothing, her neglected and skinny – yet so beautiful – appearance. In the days that follow, Oskar and Eli clumsily reach out to one another. They meet at the playground after dark. Their friendship grows into love, and Eli becomes the first real hope in Oskar’s life. But there are complications: Eli is not like other people – she can’t be in sunlight, she can’t eat food, and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other peoples' blood to live he’s faced with a choice. How much can love forgive?

Cast & Crew

Director

Tomas Alfredson
Producer

John Nordling, Carl Molinder
Screenwriter

John Ajvide Lindqvist
Director of photography

Hoyte van Hoytema
Main Cast

Kåre Hedebrant (Oskar), Lina Leandersson (Eli), Per Ragnar (Håkan)
Original Score

Johan Söderqvist

Director's comment

When I read John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Let the right one in last summer I knew that I absolutely had to share this story on film. It’s a feeling you only get with one script or novel in a hundred. Most of the time there are parts of the material that grab me, a feeling here, a detail there – and I can’t wait to get my greedy hands on it and start rewriting. This time it was different. This is a story which is both fantastic literature and a fantastic drama. Despite the depressing background of a leaden grey Sweden, the harsh social conditions, bullying and the bloody violence, I see it as a romantic love story with a hopeful and a happy ending. I see the same dynamics between the dark background and the light foreground as in the stories of Charles Dickens, or the classical writers of horror, for that matter. This is an entertaining film rich in social pathos and an in-depth knowledge of mankind, capable of attracting a mass audience without being fat or calculating. I also believe that its unequivocal Swedishness lends it great opportunities for international success.