The Infected Review LET ME IN

[PeteMork]

Follow up to my first review:

I took my daughter to see the film yesterday. She’s the closest I have to an impartial third party, although she has seen LROI several times. She liked the film but is only partially ‘infected.” She knew absolutely nothing about the remake, other than the names of the leads. I deliberately told her nothing about my first impressions of the remake.

Her first impressions?

Why were there only about 10 people in the theater, despite the fact that it was Saturday at 2:30PM?

As the final credits were rolling, she volunteered. “The two things I hated most about the film were the music and the CGI. Both were awful.”

She also despised the fact that Eli and Oskar were now Abby and Owen. She was also surprised that they had brought the plot to the U.S. She assumed it would still be in Sweden, where the winter atmosphere is more conducive to such things as evil and isolation. (Apologies to all you Swedes out there. She really didn’t mean it THAT way.)

She was not as bothered as I had been that the ‘familiar’ (Jenkins) had been a previous Owen. She thought that, in this interpretation, it worked.

Indeed, once I accepted it this time around, it made the scene where Abby touched his face in their apartment much more poignant. And the scene at the hospital was even more so, if you assume she loved him as much as she would soon love Owen. And I actually did get that impression on this second viewing. Abby’s reactions to him in other scenes were more subtle than I had realized previously and implied that love to me. My opinion of the depth of Chloe’s acting in this roll has gone up considerably. Jenkins was simply Sauvin’s Oskar at 40…or 50. And Chloe was simply Sauvin’s Eli, waiting patiently for him at home.

I absolutely have to mention here that this time, I could DISTINCTLY hear Abby’s wings as she left Jenkins’ hospital window, and more importantly, I heard them distinctly as least twice in the pool scene as she was massacring the bullies while Owen was gasping for breath on the edge of the pool. No mistaking that sound!

Kodi still stole the show, IMO. His acting was almost perfect; especially if we keep in mind that he was doing what he was told to do by Reeves. If his anger didn’t measure up to our perceptions of Oskar’s in the book or film, blame Reeves. Kodi is 12 years old and is interpreting the character exactly as his director has told him to do. He’s not a prima donna like Marlon Brando, who, in “Apocalypse Now,” demanded that his personal interpretation of Walter (the horror!) Kurtz be used in spite of the fact that he hadn’t bothered to read, and more unfathomably had NEVER read, “Heart of Darkness.” But I digress…

Besides, Owen in the Halloween mask stabbing at the mirror more than adequately expressed his inner rage to me, even if he had to use a prop to accomplish it. I imagine with a little effort, all sorts of symbolism can be conjured up out of this scene.

I reaffirm my position that the film stands adequately on its own, and is plausible in its own right. No inconsistencies and no major flaws (less CGI and sometimes the music), but it still, through no fault of the cast, lacks that magical love relationship between our Oskar and our Eli that has kept me scratching my head in wonderment and awe all this time.

[Wolfchild]

But man did I hate Jenkin's
maybe I'm getting sloppy, maybe I want to get caught
spoken directly to Abby after screwing up worse than Hakan.

I don`t know why people are so down on that line since it was a direct quote that Hakan said to Eli in the novel

This bothered me when I first read it, so I went back and reviewed the novel. I can't find a place where Håkan says this. Can you point it out to me?

[a_contemplative_life]

There are places where Hakan wishes it would be "over" (e.g., when he is disposing of Jocke), but he never tells Eli that, I'm pretty sure.

[danielma]

But man did I hate Jenkin's
maybe I'm getting sloppy, maybe I want to get caught
spoken directly to Abby after screwing up worse than Hakan.

I don`t know why people are so down on that line since it was a direct quote that Hakan said to Eli in the novel

This bothered me when I first read it, so I went back and reviewed the novel. I can't find a place where Håkan says this. Can you point it out to me?

Thank you, neither can I Wolfchild.

I know there are instances where he thinks about "how he doesn't enjoy killing" or something to that effect...he struggles a little with killing, there's actually a small discussion he has about that with Eli...but that line of dialog the "Maybe I'm getting sloppy, maybe I'm just tired" line is not there from what I can see and remember

And besides why would he say that in the novel anyways? He had only been with Eli for a short time before they moved Blackeberg, so why would he say that line in the book?

So yeah I'm confused, I can't remember this in the book, and when I flipped through it the other night, I couldn't find any instance of a line like that coming out of Hakan's mouth

[drakkar]

Can't remember that either. And Håkan getting sloppy simply doesn't make sense. He hasn't had the time - he has been with Eli only for some months at most. He is a terrible killer (Mr. Bean of serial killers TA or JAL called him) and he is desperately trying to get the hang of it. So fear of getting sloppy shouldn't be an issue in the book.

[Aurora]

I'm going to attempt to get this thread back on topic by writing a review of LMI, unfortunately I agree with most of the comments that have already been written about it on here already

I thought that Kodi was very good as Owen, he portrayed very well what was clearly becoming an unbearable situation. In fact the two occaisions that I cried when I watched (when he was on the phone to his dad and when he was being dragged to the pool) were because I believed in his suffering.

Richard Jenkins was also very good as 'the father', I couldn't fault his performance, although I might question some of the dialogue he was given...

Elias Koteas didn't have much to do, but was convincing as the policeman.

Chloe was ok.

Regarding the story in general I was happier with the parts that were new than I was with the parts that had been carried over from LTROI. That wasn't what I was expectinging, I thought that it would be the opposite and that I'd be unhappy where it deviated from what I knew. Also I liked the few additional touches from the book that had been overlooked in the first film too. Owen gasping for breath after being held under the water was more realistic than the original. Also the lighting outdoors seemed more authentic than the rather too bright lighting in LTROI (it's far too bright during Hakan's first attempt at getting blood for example).

Having said that there were lots of things that i didn't like, all of the Owen and Abbey scenes were worse than the equivalent ones in LTROI. I honestly felt nothing at all when Abby left Owen, although possibly the disappointing score from Michael Giacchino might have had something to do with that. Abbey's attacks couldn't have been less convincing, another disappointment considering the much larger budget.

I'll admit that I liked it better the second time I saw it, but it was still a long way from being as good as I hoped it would be. Having said that TLJ loved it, but what does she know, she's Team Edward

[danielma]

Also the lighting outdoors seemed more authentic than the rather too bright lighting in LTROI (it's far too bright during Hakan's first attempt at getting blood for example).

That I can fight a little, but mainly because I like the very "Intense Moonlight" style lighting. For me it played into the idea of just how terrible of a killer Hakan is...The fact that he is doing this in an exposed area...I think the lighting plays into that and I liked that. I also like the fact it doesn't go with the conventional use of shadows for dramatic or horrific effect. There is something very odd about the fact that the scene is playing out in exposed light.

But on the other hand I also like the cinematography of LMI. I think its a very striking film visually, I like the look of both films to be honest. LMI has a very distinct striking look, and the same can be said for LTROI in its unconventional use of lighting. I think they both have a striking visual look that is there own.

Although my one complaint with LMI...I didn't like the use of that haze/orange glow that they used in the Jungle Gym scenes...only cause I feel the lighting detracted from Abby, I think inadervitngly it actually contrasts her and makes her look too full of life. Get away from that lighting and she looked a little more pale, a little more dead if you will. But in those scenes, I think the lighting on her makes almost look a little too full of life, and I didn't necessarily like that.

[gattoparde59]

I noticed that my local multiplex was showing Let Me In on Thursday night, so I decided to skip the Phillies on tv and take the opportunity to see this film which is rapidly disappearing from theater screens in the US. I thought the film interesting and entertaining, but ultimately flawed.

The first thing I noticed is the degree to which this remake contains rather more film influence from Alfred Hitchcock than from Tomas Alfredson. Wolfchild points out elsewhere that the car crash was inspired by Dial M For Murder and there are plenty of other examples. Owen’s voyeurism comes straight out of Rear Window, and other films like Psycho. Let Me In’s overt sexuality distinguishes this version from the Alfredson reading and is also very Hitchcockian. I enjoyed the Hitchcock elements and I think they were much better done than what you see with Brian De Palma.

I enjoyed the music, which reminds me of Bernard Herrmann’s work. The music was good, but I think it was misused in the film. In some scenes it was too shrill and spoiled the mood. In others it simply drowned out the dialogue. The problem with the music makes a good example of the flaws in this film in general. This is a film with beautiful cinematography. There are witty quotations from Hitchcock (and from Tomas Alfredson). The casting of Kodi and Chloe was brilliant- they are two very capable child actors, and they both look strikingly freakish in the film. Kodi in particular stands out as painfully skinny and bug eyed, fearfully peering around corners or looking over his shoulder. All these beautiful elements have been assembled for Let Me In and yet they don’t quite fit together. For this, the only person I can blame is Matt Reeves.

Most important of all, Abby and Owen don’t quite fit together. The way the story is developed in Let Me In I feel as though we are not given a compelling reason why these two should fall in love with each other. I missed Oskar’s basic decency and compassion and Eli’s loneliness and desire.

John Lindqvist writes about some very depressing subjects, most especially alienation and the things that prise us apart as human beings. This sort of thing is done well in Let Me In. Think of Kodi’s father telling him that he loves him- over the telephone. At the same time, Lindqvist also wants to write about how love can overcome these obstacles, and I feel that Let Me In does not do this sort of thing nearly well enough. As a whole, Let Me In does not quite work, which is a shame because it didn’t have to turn out that way.