Let the right one in - Simply wonderful

One of my favorite films for 2008. And, no worries, it is not another scary movie without any sense.... It is not scary at all actually...

Let the Right One In (Swedish: Låt den rätte komma in) is a 2008 Swedish romantic vampire film directed by Tomas Alfredson. It derives from the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. It tells the story of a bullied 12-year-old boy who develops a friendship with a vampire in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm.

The film received widespread international critical acclaim and won numerous awards, including the "Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature" at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation's 2008 Méliès d'Or (Golden Méliès) for the "Best European Fantastic Feature Film", as well as four Guldbagge Awards from the Swedish Film Institute. Due to the film's initial success at various film festivals, the rights for an English language remake of the film were sold before the film had its theatrical release.

The trailer


Cast:

Kåre Hedebrant (born in 1995) is a Swedish child actor best known for playing the main character in the 2008 Swedish romantic horror film Let the Right One In. He lives in Hässelby, near Stockholm. Hedebrant currently attends Adolf Frederick´s School of Music, with singing as a main subject.

In 2007, after an open casting involving 4000 kids, Hedebrant was chosen to play the role of Oskar in Let the Right One In. Oskar, the protagonist of the film, is a 12-year old bullied boy who strikes up a friendship with the mysterious Eli (Lina Leandersson), who later turns out to be a vampire. Hedebrant received generally positive notices for his role. According to If magazine's reviewer, "Hedebrant does a fine job of conveying the boy’s silent longing, rage and defiance". James Berardinelli considered him an "interesting choice to play Oskar", and noted that he "effectively makes the character seem remote, withdrawn, and a little creepy". Hedebrant has expressed that although he hasn't decided to pursue a career in acting, he would "definitely" want to try it again. He received a nomination for "Best Performance in an International Feature Film - Leading Young Performers" (with Lina Leandersson), in the 30th Annual Young Artist Awards.



Lina Leandersson was born in 1995 in Falun, Sweden. Artistic from an early age, she acted in amateur theatre performances, attended drama courses, street- and jazz dance. One of her first roles was the mother of a spoiled girl wanting new jeans. In 2006 she appeared as a jury member in the Swedish song competition Lilla Melodifestivalen. The same year, she was selected as one out of five, from a total of five hundred applicants, to participate in "Nickelodeon's programledarskola", which was televised in October 2006.

Leandersson applied for the role in Let the Right One In through a web-based casting service. After being contacted by child casting director Maggie Widstrand, she auditioned for the role three times before finally being cast.

"Otherworldly child actors Hedebrant and Leandersson perfectly embody their roles"

In the movie, she plays the child vampire Eli, who befriends the main character, 12-year-old Oskar (played by Kåre Hedebrant). Because Eli is supposed to be an androgynous character in the movie, director Tomas Alfredson decided to overdub Leandersson's voice with a less feminine one. Eli's voice throughout the whole movie is provided by Elif Ceylan. In an interview with Dagens Nyheter, Leandersson laughingly commented that, "it was actually nice to be dubbed, my voice sounds weird".



Leandersson and Hedebrant were never allowed to read the script. Instead, the director would read the lines to them before every scene. According to Leandersson, "Tomas is a good teller. I listened very carefully". She identified the most difficult parts as the ones where she was supposed to be angry, and the transitioning between being normal and "crazy". In an interview, Leandersson recalled how she went totally into her role, to the point of "becoming" the character Eli, but affirmed that there are few similarities between herself and her character, describing Eli as more mature and contemplative.



When asked about the biggest challenge in making the movie, the director mentioned the fact that people already would have a perception of the characters and the surroundings from the novel. He especially felt that the depiction of Eli was difficult, but noted that he was "very happy about Lina", and compared her on another occasion to "an 80-year-old woman, very wise and very quiet".

Leandersson's performance received wide critical acclaim. According to Karen Durbin of Elle, she "evokes Eli's radical apartness with an air of watchful caution and a contained stillness of body that not only belies her childish appearance (...)", and "In a performance devoid of sentimentality she perfectly captures the awful solitude of a creature who exists outside time". James Berardinelli praised her performance, "crafting an individual who is both mysterious and compelling", while Justin Lowe of the Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The youthful actors imbue even the most emotional and disturbing scenes with remarkable complexity. Leandersson is particularly impressive as the conflicted young vampire who wants nothing more than to be an ordinary girl again". Luke Y. Thompson of LA Weekly even went as far as saying: "When it comes to preteens as eternal vampires, Kirsten Dunst in Interview With the Vampire used to be the gold standard; in Leandersson, I think we have a new champion".

Soundtrack :

Swedish composer Johan Söderqvist wrote the score. He was instructed by Alfredson to write something that sounded hopeful and romantic, in contrast to the events that takes place in the film. Söderqvist has described it as consisting of both darkness and light, and emphasized that the most important quality of the music in this film had to be melody and harmony. It is performed by the The Slovak National Symphony Orchestra. The score placed fourth on Ain't it Cool News' Top 10 Best Scores Of 2008 List, being described as "scrupulously weaving together strains of bone-chillingly cold horror with the encompassing warmth of newly acquired love". If magazine described the score as "the most beautifully emotional score yet to grace the undead. It’s a feeling of tender melancholy that delivers its scares in a subtle, chamber orchestra way".

Eli's theme


The song "Kvar i min bil" written and performed by Per Gessle, is heard numerous times during the film. Originally an outtake from Gessle's solo album En Händig Man, the song was specially provided for the film, to resemble the sound of popular 80's pop group Gyllene Tider. Gessle has described the song as a "bluesy tune with a nice guitar hook”. Other songs in the film include "Försonade" from 1968, written and performed by future ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog, and "Flash in the Night" from 1981, written by Tim Norell and Björn Håkansson and performed by Secret Service.

The soundtrack was released by MovieScore Media on 11 November 2008. It contains 21 of Söderqvist's original scores from the film.


The entire movie is available here, and the first part is just below (click to the link to watch the rest of the movie Let The Right One In)