We, The Infected

In this sense, Alfredson has preserved the queasy nature of Lindqvist’s work. As in his deeply unsettling Little Star, Lindqvist is concerned with the culling and cultivation of violence and violent impulses in youth, the ways in which an innocent love can tease out a terrifying true nature. Here, however, as in Little Star, that inner monster serves as the bridge to emotional connection.

When Oskar discovers she’s a vampire, she soothes him by saying he’s as bloodthirsty as her. Oskar wants to kill as much she needs to. It’s love as bloodlust, and it’s a revelation from which he’ll never turn back.

In his review, Roger Ebert described Oskar and Eli as “two lonely and desperate kids capable of performing dark deeds without apparent emotion.”

In other words, they’re an outcast’s fantasy come true.

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Considering all this, it’s perhaps surprising that the film has been so embraced as a love story. Think about it, though, and it makes sense: Love stories about weirdos have become as routine as any other rom-com. In those films, weirdos are hoarders or socially awkward or have kooky families. Here, we have monsters. Here, we have the lost. It makes sense, perhaps, that the only person Oskar could love is a pale, ageless bloodsucker.

In the end, they ride off together in a train, she in a box, he accompanying it. She taps on it, spelling out “kiss” in Morse Code. He taps back, “puss,” which stands for “small kiss” in Swedish. It’s a sweet moment, but also a scary one. Because it won’t be long until that kiss becomes a bite.

“Be me, for a little while,” she said to him previously.

As with so many relationships, however, “a little while” is about to turn into “forever.”

It makes you wonder if he let the right one in, after all.

In any other movie, Eli’s arrival would soften Oskar. That’s what love’s supposed to do, isn’t it? Not here. This isn’t the story of a love that repairs a broken heart and smooths away the hard edges. Eli is a creature of violence; she’s lonely, sure, but the connection she seeks isn’t the kind we’d typically describe as love. The same goes for Oskar, who, being only 11 years old, longs not for love so much as somebody with whom to go steady. He falls for her precisely because she tells him to do what society tells him not to, which is to fight back, to make his bullies bleed and suffer.

It is a really nice review indeed! And to be honest, despite th hopeless romantic I am, I do agree. They are monsters, but that's what makes their love so interesting.

It does look like it will be a pretty dark future for the two of them, which is what makes their falling for each other so interesting.