Let the Right One In

Tomas Alfredson’s film is set in Blackeberg on the edge of Stockholm, but was shot far north in Luleå, where snow and cold could be relied on. John Ajvide Lindqvist adapted his own novel and cut two heavy things down. Håkan’s interest in children is left unstated, and Eli’s past is reduced to a scar glimpsed during a change of clothes. The film never explains who Håkan is; the book does. Lina Leandersson’s voice was dubbed by Elif Ceylan so that a twelve year old body would not match a two hundred year old voice. Hoyte van Hoytema keeps the camera still for most of the film, and violence sits at the edge of frame or underwater. It won Guldbagge awards for directing, screenplay and cinematography plus achievement awards for production design and sound; best film went to Everlasting Moments, which Sweden also chose over it for the Academy Awards. Tribeca gave it the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature. A good fit if you accept violence shown at the edge of frame or underwater and an adult in the flat whose role is never explained. Not for viewers who start without checking the subtitle track: the first American discs carried a flattened translation that drained the schoolyard dialogue, and corrected pressings say English (theatrical) on the back.