Per Ragnar as Eli’s tragic minion Håkan in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.
dangerous James (played with singular intensity by Cam Gigandet, who’s becoming quite the sa- distic heartthrob with NEVER BACK DOWN so fresh in the memory). TWILIGHT also inverts LET THE RIGHT ONE IN’s ominously leisurely rhythms, but that’s appropriate. It is female (specifically teenage female) where LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is male. Still, like Oskar, Bella doesn’t want to be here, but she has to make the best of it. For Bella, life is accelerating out of her control—uprooted by her mother’s decision, forced by those circumstances to live with her estranged father, she finds herself dropped into a new house- hold unsure of how to interact with a young woman, a new school where she is uncertain of her place in the predatory food chain—and that’s the pulse the film adopts from its opening moments. This is what Brian De Palma accomplished with
CARRIE (1976) in its day, and it’s no surprise that director Catherine Hardwicke (THIRTEEN, LORDS OF DOGTOWN) infuses this into TWILIGHT with such absolute conviction. As a storyteller, Hardwicke believes and invests 100% in Bella, and so do we. Thus, with their opposing rhythms and perspectives, both TWILIGHT and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN maintain their focus on their young
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potential lovers (“potential” in that both films are very much about the process of how these un- usual couples meet and gravitate to one another) with remarkable lucidity.
They do so while telling many other stories: for instance, both TWILIGHT and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN move outside the realm of their odd couples to tell us a bit about those who act as satellites to their core stories. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN does this more often, though, and as part of its full narrative tapestry: we see events and conse- quences of events invisible and unknowable to Oskar and Eli. These include the essential threads of what’s going on with Eli’s elder male companion Håkan (Per Ragnar). On first viewing, we wonder if he is Eli’s father? Relative? Lover? Renfield? (more on that in a moment) as he makes his botched attempts to secure fresh blood for Eli. We are also privy to the pathetic drama that plays out in the social circle of two of Eli’s victims, culminating in the disaster that forces Eli to leave town. Eli spells this out explicitly in her farewell note to Oskar: like a shark, she must continue moving to survive—and that is the choice Oskar must make, to join her or let her go. Bella and Edward are also forced to make critical choices about staying or going, pressured by
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