Let Me In

Reviewed by J. Lunden on October 1, 2010

My respect for cinema and my understanding that not every film can be prejudged from advertising and/or dubious Internet buzz demands that I at least attempt to look at each film as an individual work. That is often a difficult task, especially when approaching the now all too common practice of remakes. And it’s even worse when the film being remade is one you dearly cherish. So it is with Let Me In, an American remake of Tomas Alfredson’s Låt den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In), a film for which I have tremendous admiration. Settling down in the theatre to watch Let Me In, I tried to clear my mind of the original film. I didn’t want the process of my perception to be like a dark alley with doubts waiting like thugs with switchblades. I wanted to see writer/director Matt Reeves’ remake for what it was, not for what it wasn’t. Within the first five minutes of the film, it was clear Reeves had made that impossible.

The basic premise is the same: a lonely 12-year-old boy, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is seemingly invisible to all but a trio of bullies, befriends Abby (Chloe Moretz), a 12-year-old (“more or less”) vampire. Abby has an adult companion (Richard Jenkins) who kills and drains victims to keep her alive. In my review of the original film I said that the story was less about the romanticized mythology of bloodsuckers and more about the relationship of two desperately lonely kids. With Let Me In, Reeves has retained the idea, but not the execution. It’s clear that he respects the original film and aimed to faithfully reproduce its tone while attempting to make his own vision. But therein lies the film’s fundamental failure. Let Me In stinks of imitation. So much of the film’s style and staging are directly lifted from Alfredson’s original. Reeves installs the same haunting, wintry setting, the same props, much of the original dialogue, etc. He even keeps the 1980s period intact, though he ham-handedly attempts to infuse it with a sense of Reagan-era political dread. The scenes that appear to be nearly shot-for-shot recreations clash with Reeves’ original contributions, which are often visually tactless and shallow. So, it therefore becomes impossible not to compare and contrast. This is a death sentence for Let Me In.

In order to distinguish his film, Reeves moves events and characters around from their original positions. Though this is admittedly done with some semblance of care, the rearranging only wears at the efficiency of the story and regularly undermines the subtlety and grace of the original. Reeves hurries through pivotal scenes (like Abby’s introduction in the apartment complex’s playground) yet extends sequences that are irrelevant to the central concept. The running time for both films is nearly identical, but Reeves manages to actually lose or thin entire characters without adding anything of value to the narrative. In a baffling maneuver, Reeves all but eliminates Owen’s parents from the film. His father is heard only once during a phone call and Reeves obscures the mother quite literally through a series of scenes where she appears either out of focus or framed from the neck down (like in Peanuts). The film’s violence has also been heightened. Reeves tears more flesh and spills more blood, but the victims are now faceless and the acts of violence rarely resonate beyond the initial shock of their action. As a result, Let Me In feels more genre typical.

The most frustrating alterations come when Reeves attempts to recreate the intimate relationship of Owen and Abby. He manages a few moments of clarity, like the scene in which Owen observes Abby’s footprints in the snow. And I appreciate the performances of Moretz and Smit-McPhee, two immensely talented young actors, even when Reeves stifles them. However, Reeves seems to think that many of the delicate gestures that go so movingly unsaid or undefined between the two in the original film must here be shouted, as if to ask, “get it?” And when not laying bare the original film’s subtleties, Let Me In concerns itself with trifles. It’s not enough to simply know (or not know) that the note Abby leaves for Owen is a quote from Romeo and Juliet, Reeves feels it necessary to show Owen reading the play, watching the Zeffirelli film, etc., in order to really cement the reference. It’s worth pointing out that Romeo and Juliet is discussed in John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel, yet Lindqvist himself was smart enough to cut all but the briefest mention from his screen adaptation. Distillation is an art.

Perhaps if I were not aware of Let the Right One In, I might consider Reeves’ film to be a welcome, if somewhat stale, diversion from the insufferable and unceasing cults of Twilight and True Blood. But the truth is that I intensely disliked almost every frame of Let Me In. Reeves has dulled the edges of a great story, turning it into a blunt object that he wields behind a veneer of borrowed aesthetics. All I could see were the essential missing pieces and the missteps of a filmmaker who seemed not to understand the soul of the material.

To find the fundamental deformity in Let Me In, one must look no further than the title itself. While the original title suggested a complexity of meaning, the remake’s title seems to be petulantly demanding attention. Rightly so, because outside of the American audience’s fear of subtitles, Let Me In really has no reason to exist. There have been far worse films this year, but none as irrelevant. It’s simply a gratuitous translation.