I thought it would be a good exercise to write an inner dialog for Eli in each of the scenes in the film where she is present.
I was going to try my hand at writing some fiction, but first I wanted to be sure that I understood the characters. For Oskar, I don't think it is that difficult; he wears his heart on sleeve and the only person who can't tell what he is thinking is his mom. :-) For Eli this is another matter. Eli doesn't say much and most of the time wears an impassive expression. The film almost never tells us what Eli is thinking at any given moment. So I thought it would be a good exercise to write an inner dialog for Eli in each of the scenes in the film where she is present. This would allow me to clarify for myself how I viewed the Eli character. Since the information provided in the film about Eli is pretty sparse, this dialog mostly represents my impressions of the character. I find that I am highly influenced by John Ajvide Lindqvist's comments from the two commentary tracks. I also find that my view of Håkan is influenced by a comment that Tomas Alfredson made in an interview, " Love is the only thing that is a threat to Eli, so Håkan would be the only person she could be close to - that is, a person she despises."
This is all dialog - either the film's spoken dialog or Eli's inner dialog. There is no narrative.