Let Me In (2010)
What an infuriating film! It is born of the most cynical of ideas to capitalise on the success of a true modern classic; there is absolutely no excuse for remaking Let The Right One In. Yet they have and it has been crafted to the highest possible standards and I’m sure Matt Reeves at least approached the job properly and aimed to produce something valuable. If not for the pointless reasons it was made at all, this could have been an important contribution to American horror, lying somewhere between The Exorcist and The Omen. There is a huge difference between this and the recent run of remakes based on Asian films, like The Ring and The Eye. Let Me In is worth a dozen of those, seriously.
The first thing to notice, is that Let Me In is a very American film, with a strong social and visual identity, plus genuine justification for being set in the Reagan years (the scene with his speech in the background is clever and not the only time the screenplay finds relevance beyond the considerable capabilities of the Swedish version). Matt Reeves couldn’t have made a more different film to Cloverfield and he demonstrates real skill, choosing a very claustrophobic framing of characters, while using a lot of wide-open compositions for some of the sets. The opening scene is a perfect example and in many ways the film reminded me of Fincher’s Seven. But I’ll stick my neck on the line and say that Reeves promises to be a much more mature director if he can carry this standard through to more original work.
In one sense you can see how hard they have worked at this film, because they do exactly what they feel is right for the story. So, some scenes are absolutely identical, while others take a brand new approach. Nothing is done for the sake of sensationalism; what set-pieces there are feel organic to the plot. Take Abby’s transformation, using more CGi than the original. I was sure I would be disappointed, but it’s important to realise how elegant those scenes are done. She doesn’t transform on screen, but raises her eyes to reveal the change in an extreme close-up. It’s breathtaking and seeing how vampires have been done so often that they’ve become a cliché, it is commendable that the original yet traditional twists Let The Right One In provided have been done differently without resorting to Hollywood nonsense. The new transformation does remove one angle of the screenplay which hinted at her real age, but it’s replaced by a cute, if more obvious tweak.
The cast uniformly give a great performance. As with everything, you can’t help but compare with the first one, but in trying to be fair and judging by their own merits, this cast are excellent. Elias Koteas couldn’t give a bad performance if he tried and he invests the down-trodden detective with just the right balance of emotion. Similar is a haunting Richard Jenkins as Abby’s resolute guardian. Abby herself is played by Chloe Moretz who builds on Kick Ass to exploit her impressive range in a more sombre manner. And Kodi Smit-McPhee proves adept at another challenging and emotional role following The Road, as the quiet and lonely Owen. Particularly good are the scenes with his mum (Cara Buono), as she is never seen properly. She is always out of focus or frame, building the emphasis on Owen’s sad childhood.
As if to prove how different this approach is to a normal cash-in remake, consider my only real fault with the film. I found it paced a little too slow! Normally I’d expect such a film to hype the drama.
There is one excuse after all for wanting to make this film and that is in creating a brand for the recently revived Hammer studios. Ironically, even many years ago they started with The Quatermass Xperiment, an arguably unnecessary remake of the BBC series and they made their name with remakes of classic Universal monsters. Their upcoming roster of films is very promising and if they manage to generate more interest and success by being able to stick “from the producers of Let me In” on the posters, then I’ll have another excuse for liking this film as much as I do! I’m ashamed to say I thought it was superb. Bugger. I really wanted to slag them off.
Related posts:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
