Let the Right One In

there were a few aspects of the movie that i really liked. i thought it was awesome that they made the old man, Hakan, really out of his element. he actually feels like a mechanic (who's a decent person) who is trying to be a murderer and he's just really bad at it and that's awesome. of the backstories, his is one of the most interesting to theorize about. namely: why the fuck is an old guy hanging out with a 12y/o girl-vampire? i think the most obvious answer to this is he, Hakan, was once young and also fell for Eli, like Oskar. it's never hinted directly at, but there are quite a few parallels between the two. When Oskar asks Eli to date (which was fucking adorable), Eli responds that they can kind-of-date. They can be friends that love eachother and care for eachother but that she is not a she. That arrangement is pretty much exactly what Hakan has right now. On top of that, Eli's home is very sparcely furnished and there is only one sentimental item which contains a bunch of rings. If those aren't wedding rings from past amores, I'm kinda at a loss to why a millenia old vampire would choose random rings as her sole sentimental possession to keep. There's a lot that kinda just implies Eli's life occurs in cycles, and the movie captures Hakan's ending and Oskar's beginning.

Eli's character was also very well done. I spent the whole movie trying to decide if she had ever matured past 12 years of age. In the end I've decided that she partially did, partially didn't. She has the experience of an ancient but the mental and physical maturity of a 12y/o. A lot of stories claim to have a character like this, but very few actually do.

There are 2 giant holes in the movie that really bug me. Vampirism is transmitted from biting, and it seems that being a Vampire is much more a curse than anything else romantic. So it makes sense that Eli doesn't bite her friends for blood... but they establish that the blood doesn't need to be direct-from-the-source (the whole point of Hakan goin out to do the murder is to bring Eli back blood to drink). Even if we assume that it still needs to be pretty fresh, then suddenly a lot of the plot seems a bit trivial. Especially because in each of the scenes where Eli attacks someone, she drinks a little bit and then calls it a day. Why not just take a bit of blood from an ally and skip all the drama. They don't even have to be a lover, just get a group of friends and convince em you need small blood infusions each day for some unheard of disease.

The second is why does each kill need to be made by either Hakan or Eli (its never by both). They both suck at it, but it would be so much easier if they just worked together. Follow up to this: why doesn't Eli make Oskar or Hakan a vampire as well.