CINEMA: Let The Right One In

From the very first shot of snowflakes silently dancing against a dark sky there is something otherworldly and eerily beautiful about this film.

Set in a frozen town in Sweden it tells a tale of the dispossessed, the lonely, and the left behind. Young Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is being bullied at school and fantasises about stabbing his tormentors. Instead, he befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson) the strange young girl from the flat next door to his who only appears in the flats’ snow-filled courtyard at night – minus shoes and coat. She seems both feral and supernaturally calm and Oskar unwittingly wins both her eternal friendship and love by giving her his Rubik’s cube.

Their nightly meetings give his life meaning and hope but the realisation slowly dawns that Eli is not like other children and to reciprocate her love will alter Oskar’s life forever.

Dee Pilgrim