Eli [embodies] a new combination of undead chum and unnaturally attentive lover, a sort of guardian angel with fangs. […] Does the new ['friendly'] vampire, then, have the potential to stand in as a metaphor for our age’s fantasies of non-exploitative tolerance and relatively equitable love relationships?[…]
The baroque excesses in the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist on which it is based have been carefully excised. Some critical confusion attended the release of Let the Right One In, in part because of a decision to remove the back story of the novel, which features flashbacks to Eli’s origin as a vampire. In the film, Eli explains that she’s been twelve for
a long time, and one brief shot reveals what she means when she says that she’s “not a girl.” The book relates the castration of Eli, called “Elias” two centuries prior, at the hands of a sadistic vampire. In the film, Eli moves into the estate with a male companion that some mistook for her father, but who is in fact a lover whose pedophilia takes an even-more monstrous turn in the second half of the novel.[…]
Stoker was trotted out in notices of Let the Right One In. In fact, the two works can only be usefully compared by inversion. The ruined castle becomes an apartment block with cheap fixtures, the rain-lashed ship headed for Whitby becomes a taxi moving through heavy snow, the vampire’s coffin resting place becomes a bathroom spot beneath a covered window.
— J. M. Tyree: Warm-Blooded: True Blood and Let the Right One In (Film Quarterly)
The only thing more horrifying than the insatiable bloodlust of the undead is the everyday terror of adolescence.
— Andrew Schenker (Slant Magazine)
I am reminded of Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence and Persona because there is a striking similarity in the mannerisms of the boy in those movies to Oskar. They always seem to be reaching out to something in front of them, perhaps knowingly proactive or possibly unconsciously impelled.[…]
Another note-worthy aspect to the narrative is that much of the bullying concerns the visage. [These] facial attacks contrast with Oskar’s belief that he needs to sign up for an after-school weightlifting program. The bullies, to the best of my knowledge, don’t pick on him for his diminutive frame and he wrongly thinks strength is the answer. [The] expression on Oskar’s face when he finally retaliates to his trauma is awash with relief and relish, yes, but it also conveys a deeper signification, a spiritual awakening. The power of the face triumphs over the body.
[…]
Brian Osoro speculates on this egg that shatters upon touch as ‘within reason to assume that this simple act could represent Eli finally shedding off her outisder status to Oskar and inviting his support and empathy.’
[…]
I learn that the father of the novelist and scriptwriter Lindqvist drowned to death, and perhaps this personal attachment to the movie’s swimming pool sequence contributes to its potency.
Håkan’s devotion to Eli – and hapless quest to secure her blood – is not mere familial piety, as [Michael] Wood suggests; jealousy, not paternal concern, lies behind his plea that Eli not see Oskar. The film’s conclusion, then, has a darker significance, for in Håkan, we may have glimpsed Oskar’s own future.
— Tor Krever (Letter to The London Review of Books)
The title [comes] from a song by Morrissey, a romantic fatalist who would surely appreciate this darkly perverse love story. “Let the right one in,” he sings in Let the Right One Slip In. I’d say you were within your rights to bite/The right one and say, ‘What kept you so long?’ ” These may sound like words to live by, though in the case of a film about a boy and the girl next door who may just be a vampire, they could easily turn out to be words to die for.
— Manohla Dargis (The New York Times)
The film adaptation of Let The Right One In has a scene at the end where Oskar is using Morse Code to communicate with Eli through the luggage compartment. In this scene Eli sends a Morse code to Oskar, P U S S — Swedish for “small kiss”. This final gesture to Oskar shows the innocent love between these two misfits, and how they have grown together to find a simple, yet complicated love story. [Only] time will tell if these two outcasts will remain loyal to one another, but if I had my way, I’d have them both remain twelve forever.
— Michael Gabriel (The Writer's Voice)
Synopsis: Oskar is a bullied 12 year-old boy, longing to extract revenge on his tormentors but unable to build the courage to do it himself. But then he meets a girl called Eli, who gives him the strength he's been looking for. But Eli is not all she seems to be...