Who loves Abby?

[Zeb]

Im gonna be really honest here.

I was surfing the movie channels last year and one was about to start which i hadnt heard of before,but had a curious title-it was called Let me in.I pressed the info button to read what it was about and immedietly was a bit sceptical because it was about a child vampire which i'll be honest isnt something i'd usually watch,but something caught my eye.It mentioned Chloe Moretz-a name from one of my favourite flicks Kickass and she really did act her socks off in that so i sat down to watch it basically because of her.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie to the point i went online afterwards and ordered the DVD.When the DVD turned up few days later it mentioned on the sleeve it was a remake of a Swedish movie called Let the right one in.Anyway,few days later i had the tv guide on and it showed that at midnight Channel four would be showing the subtitled Let the right one one so i set my Sky+ to record it.I watched it a few days later and thought it was absolutely fantastic and after doing a little research found its based on a book.

So i went online again and ordered the DVD and book.Just thought i'd fill you in how i came across both movies and book.

Anyway,back to the movie.I still think Chloe Moretz is a fantastic actress and she played the character Abby so very well.Yes,the special effects are a bit more glitzy and theres a bit more gore,but i still think Abby has a tender side which others might not see or recognise.I rate this 10/10.

I think we're going to be seeing good things for years to come from Chloe.

[sauvin]

Sorry that went a bit off topic towards the end

No, it didn't.

Hakan existed in the story almost exclusively to support and help Eli in material ways. He does additional service for us, though, in illustrating just how profoundly confused and lost Eli is where it comes to human relationships. The conversations they have concerning love spring to mind.

That's a conversation I wish had made it in to LMI...just because I felt it would have been rather appropriate to the story of Thomas and Abby

Would it have been the same conversation, though? They've been together for forty years, and seems neither of them need any lessons on what love is. The kitchen scene just before Thomas' final hunting sortie and the few moments before his death in the hospital are what make me believe this.

As for movie Hakan? He may have been there just to explain how Eli comes to have an apartment, to show us who wears the pants in Eli's bought families, and to help give some idea just how hair-raisingly tenuous can be the life of a vampire. He was otherwise just a blob.

For me he is one of two things

1.) A hint to provide the audience with a vital clue as to what may happen to Oskar
2.) The Supplier who helps feed Eli's addiction whilst getting something in return to feed his own addiction (much like Novel Hakan)

I don't think he was just a blob, I always felt they gave us just enough info on the guy to show us that he was a man who trying to get Eli's attention only to have it not returned by her. Could be either a former long time friend, or the addict who is drawn to her for his own certain needs (I've always felt the "Don't see that boy" scene is handled more so like a deal then it is genuine affection)...But I don't think he is a blob, I think that he serves to give the audience some clues in order for them to fill in the blanks.

Movie Hakan always struck me as just being hired help, with the creepy way he smiles at her in the taxi implying part of the "deal" that binds him to her.

Can't really argue with much of that, but I don't necessarily get that her relationship with Thomas devolved into one of simple physical need. An alternative interpretation is seeded by a passage in the novel where the kids are in the courtyard playing and laughing, and Hakan notes that he's "heavy", that he can't help Eli be a child the way Oskar can. Thomas grew up, grew older and grew apart. It doesn't mean that whatever commitment he might have shared with Abby has necessarily changed in fact, but it has necessarily changed in character. Thomas, too, is unable to be a child with Abby.

Then what else could it be? He grows older and enter adulthood alone, she stays the same...surely he would be faced at some point with the prospect of love and a serious adult relaionship. Once again, trying to leave the novel out of this and treat it as its own seperate thing. The commitment would surely have to change though, otherwise why linger on the past and a time that has gone? As he is seen doing by the way he looks at the photograph. When I say need, I say this because I think they both get what they need whilst never fully growing past that. For Thomas, its a fleeting reminder of the past, for Abby, its the blood and companionship. That's the need, but where else does the relationship go? What else is there other then need?

Ultimately, all human relationships are based on need of one kind or another. A less cynical way of putting that is that relationships are based on mutual benefit. I don't think Thomas would have had much chance at otherwise normal relationships because (1) they move around too much and probably usually too fast for him to start forming the kinds of bonds a real relationship requires, and (2) he may not be able to form such bonds anyway because life with Abby has made him "kinda strange". Most of the time, the Thomas we see is more machine than man.

And have none of us ever pursued a relationship we knew couldn't be sustained? If she really is a child, she won't necessarily be thinking in terms of "someday, this boy is going to make a fine daddy". If she really is only twelve years old, even her centuries of experience won't necessarily enable her to plan out her life up to next Tuesday. It's all about the here, the now; Thomas is going away, and maybe Owen is coming in.

True but most of us end a relationship we can't sustain before the very end (death)...most of us usually grow to a point where we realize we can't keep going on. If Abby is truly a child then of course this can't apply in the same way, but it can apply for Thomas who does grow older and could leave at any point. It's questionable as to whether she is truly 12 years old (but this is a can of worms that got me into strife over at the IMDB). If you live with someone for 40 years how do you not learn?

Learn what, really?

Most of us might or might not end a relationship we can't sustain before the "very end", but neither Thomas nor Abby would fit in well with "most of us". I don't think it'd take too long, months or maybe even just weeks, for the kids to settle into some kind of routine after starting their lives together, 12something Thomas and eternally 12something Abby. With all their moving around, and with the singular loyalty and dedication it takes to stay with somebody like her for any length of time, it wouldn't be at all surprising to me to learn that she'd become something transcending simple "obsession" for him.

Here's some food for thought: when they began their lives together, when he was twelve, one presumes he knew nothing of survival in the Real World. She had to shield and protect him, provide for him, and teach him as best she could. She was Mom. As he grew into a particular kind of life, she became older sister, younger sister, daughter, niece... friend. One also presumes that she'd also been his lover, almost certainly in the earliest stages of their relationship while she'd still been Mom, and very possibly throughout their entire decades-long life together.

I can't really speak for why Abby stuck with him, although there certainly are a number of reasons why she might, including the possibility that boys or men she can accept who can also accept her are a bit thin on the ground.

Thomas, though? The word "obsessed" comes to mind. This guy, too, stopped growing in many important ways while he was also still twelve.

The transformation itself, where she discovers the wonder of her own blood, wasn't even accompanied by a "what the heck" moment. It was fast, seamless and complete. Virginia never had any idea anything was happening to her, and by the time it started happening, she wasn't Virginia anymore.

So first of all we kind of get this from Abby, we get the monster's effect over her...so why is this driven home with Virginia? What is the point of this? The point I took was to highlight the desperation of the movie. Which I think is one of the major distinct differences between both films, LTROI has its character making active choices...where as LMI has its character's placed into situations of desperation. What I took from Virginia in this version was the desperation of the monster had consumed her. I thought it was there to further highlight the desperation of the plight.

In "reality", neither girl is really in control of the circumstances buffeting them about. The conditions forcing their flights from Blackeberg and Los Alamos had already been building up in the form of heightened attention, ongoing investigations and suchlike in nearby areas before the girls even properly moved in. In each case, within the first few nights of their having taken up residence, Jocke's murder started stirring up the local populations, and it was just a matter of time before they'd have to leave in any event.

The only "real" choice I see either girl making is in pursuing a relationship with the boy. The rest of the story has each girl dealing with "reality" reactively.

Aw, come on. Give it a shot! It's stunning!

To be fair, I haven't read a single ounce of fan fiction here regarding Oskar and Eli either. I don't know, I always had my take on where they went next and was happy with that so I never felt the need or urge to read fan fiction (even though I'm sure there is some wonderfully written stuff out there)...but for me, I had my own take and was happy with it so never had the urge to read anyone elses follow ups...the only follow up I want to read is JAL's very own follow up

I'm the other way around. I have my own take, too, but find that other people's perspectives have expanded and enriched my own. YMMV.

I think the reason people get so passionate is simply due to the emotional connection we share with these characters...and that can lead to so many heated arguements (believe me, I've been there on IMDB)

...

I think that theory gets people heated because they do want to love Abby, and I think much like many of us here did, they feel emotionally connected and the need to defend the character....but at what point do we sit back and say "hey, its just a character, its just a movie, why are we getting so upset by someone else thinking differently?"

The generic "we" don't. People can be dismayingly tenacious when it comes to belief of most sorts. $Religion is absolute unquestionable truth, and $political_theory is the only possible result of a an unbiased logical examination of the issues at hand.

$Character is my avatar because $character did some particular thing or said some particular thing that struck a profound (and not necessarily rational) resonant chord with something I feel is very important. It may even go to the root cause of all human evil and misery.

If you attack $character, you attack that very important something, but what's worse, you attack me. By attacking my avatar, you're saying you think I'm stupid or deluded.

Because anybody with eyes and ears can plainly see I'm far from stupid - I am in fact a towering intellect with keen insight and a profound understanding of the Human Condition - it then becomes my job to correct you, to make you see the rock-solid truth this avatar represents. If you can't or won't see it, then it's pretty obvious you're the one who's stupid or deluded, and this makes you dangerous.

Saying it's just a character in a story is something of a truism. If there were no human component to the story or to the character in it, there'd be almost no need for any kind of discussion. When we're discussing Abby's emotional condition, or her motivations, or whatever, we're not really talking about Abby. We're talking about ourselves, and we're just using Abby as a proxy.

I think one of the major differences between your view and mine is that you seem to be very interested in why she does things. I'm often quite a bit more unsettled by the thought "... but if I were her.... ".

[jetboy]

Movie Hakan always struck me as just being hired help, with the creepy way he smiles at her in the taxi implying part of the "deal" that binds him to her.

I thought he looked creepy also, but then again all he did was look in her direction and smile. If Oskar ends up with Eli until he's Hakans age, are we going to have the same feelings we have towards them then as we have of them now, not knowing anything about them the same as we knew nothing about Eli and Hakan in that cab? Lets face it, older men smiling at young girls that arent their father or grandfather are not going to conjure up the warm fuzzies inside.

[danielma]

Movie Hakan always struck me as just being hired help, with the creepy way he smiles at her in the taxi implying part of the "deal" that binds him to her.

Same here, but I still can see other peoples theories...I don't subscribe to the childhood friend theory with Hakan, but I do see how that's a possibility for some viewers

Learn what, really?

Most of us might or might not end a relationship we can't sustain before the "very end", but neither Thomas nor Abby would fit in well with "most of us". I don't think it'd take too long, months or maybe even just weeks, for the kids to settle into some kind of routine after starting their lives together, 12something Thomas and eternally 12something Abby. With all their moving around, and with the singular loyalty and dedication it takes to stay with somebody like her for any length of time, it wouldn't be at all surprising to me to learn that she'd become something transcending simple "obsession" for him.

Here's some food for thought: when they began their lives together, when he was twelve, one presumes he knew nothing of survival in the Real World. She had to shield and protect him, provide for him, and teach him as best she could. She was Mom. As he grew into a particular kind of life, she became older sister, younger sister, daughter, niece... friend. One also presumes that she'd also been his lover, almost certainly in the earliest stages of their relationship while she'd still been Mom, and very possibly throughout their entire decades-long life together.

I can't really speak for why Abby stuck with him, although there certainly are a number of reasons why she might, including the possibility that boys or men she can accept who can also accept her are a bit thin on the ground.

Thomas, though? The word "obsessed" comes to mind. This guy, too, stopped growing in many important ways while he was also still twelve.

Isn't that the basis of grooming though? That you are developing someone..that you are preparing someone for the harsh reality of what is to come? Which is why you almost have to question the intent behind Abby. Does she know this and is this her grooming him? Or is it something that just happens due to the nature of the situation. You raise an interesting point, that she starts off the role as "Mom" followed by him becoming the "Father" whilst she reverts back to the child. Doesn't that indicate that she does indeed have some mentality to her that isn't just a 12 year old child? If she spends the best part of those early years sheltering, protecting and ultimately guiding him...but then when he gets to the right age, she reverts back to being a child whilst he takes her role of "Protector". Don't you almost have to question that? Isn't it weird that she starts off in the protector role then moves back to being the vulnerable child who needs protecting?

Couldn't that be the basis of the arguement of grooming? This is why I say that the theory of their relationship revolving around need is (I think) more then applicable. They get what they need from each other, but what else do they get other then that?

That's why I have to question Abby...Is this all according to plan? Or Is it just something that happens over time? I don't know if the answer will ever be answered for that...but that's the main question I took from the movie, I was never quite sure.

Now granted, yes this could also work the other way (cause it seems a little unfair to look at it from one side)...maybe the idea came from Thomas...as an attempt to bring back the child in her to help what may have already been a failing relationship...or maybe he just couldn't stand the worry as she went out and risked her life. Maybe he couldn't stand the worry that came in the form of "Is She Okay?"...and maybe he decided to take on the burden. But then you have to question why that "worry" isn't recipicated by Abby...I find it funny that whilst Thomas is out once again risking his neck for her, at the same time she is smiling her head off at the thought of the boy next door.

But once again who knows the true answer to this...because I think that's what the film wants us to question. I think the film wants us to question their motives.

Thomas, though? The word "obsessed" comes to mind. This guy, too, stopped growing in many important ways while he was also still twelve.

I don't know if I can agree with that...I think he was forever stuck relishing a better time in life, but I don't know if that meant he didn't grow. I guess the obvious hint to this is supposed to be his poor spelling...but does that necessarily indicate that mentally he hasn't grow. Clearly he is burdened by the things he does for her, and clearly there is quite a few things weighing on his mind in the short time we have with him. I would argue that he is stuck relishing a better time and that is exactly what kept him with Abby (maybe also the fear of what else do I have? Where else would I go? kept him there as well)...I don't doubt that he loves Abby and I think that is a large part of what kept him there...but at the same time, I saw a man who did seem rather conflicted. The main source of joy that we see in him comes from a past time that is long gone. Other then that he is in now in the role of caretaker. Stuck as someone who can't really connect with her due to the age difference, the only thing he has now is his fleeting past...hence (in my theory) that he too is there simply out of need.

But again just my theory...doesn't mean it applys to everyone else

I'm the other way around. I have my own take, too, but find that other people's perspectives have expanded and enriched my own. YMMV.

Like I said, I truly don't doubt that there is some wonderfully written stuff out there (I'm sure that Let Me In 2 is wondefully written and what not and kudos to the guy for doing that and having the love to do that)...but I've never been a major fan of fan fic so just never interested me

I find these forums seve the same purpose anyways (that I get other peoples perspectives)

[sauvin]

Eli isn't Abby, and Abby isn't Eli. However, the LMI and the LTROI movies are so similar in most regards that it really can be kinda hard for me to keep the two girls separate. They're both what I call Eliform vampires (Eli-like), and my rationale for including Abby in this description includes the fact that Reeves calls it a "re-imagining" or reinterpretation based on the novel. For the purposes of differential comparision, the only real major difference are the apparent differences in temperament between Oskar and Owen, and the girls' apparent relationships with their respective minders.

If we don't accept that Abby's existence is circumscribed by the same kinds of strictures seen in the novel, then we really do have to ask ourselves how much is this vampire the little girl, how much is she the monster - but also, how much might or might not she be the centuries old woman wearing a little girl's skin? Then, again, if she really is a couple centuries old and just physically stuck with being twelve, a lot of what she does in the movie really doesn't make much sense.

If she is a true Eliform vampire, periodic estivations immediately followed by whatever diminishment Eli mentions in the novel and all, along with a beast made up of brain cells living in the girl's chest, then we pretty much also need to accept that when Abby says she's twelve, but she's "been twelve for a really long time", she's being truthful. Briefly running down speculation from other topics, it means she may (or may not) have a vast store of factual knowledge at her command but still has to filter it through the cognitive processes you'd expect of any normal twelve year old child. "That's the only thing I still think is strange," says Eli, "that I never get any older in my head", or words to such effect.

Abby is what she is. She's the same Abby she was forty years ago, and she'll still be the same Abby forty years from now. She's just stuck.

Maybe she really is planning it all out. Maybe she's "grooming" Owen to be her next provider. If that's true, she's an idiot.

I thought Eli's approach was a lot more logical. She walked right up to a man she knew or strongly suspected to be morally or emotionally compromised, twisted a couple of screws, issued a command or two, and boom, done deal. She had her minder. Somebody who didn't need to be taught how to tie his own shoes or cook for himself, somebody who could probably be pressed into useful service, and somebody whose loyalty could be bought - whose loyalty could stay bought - with a suggestion, an implication and maybe a few unpleasant gropes. Maybe. This guy is potentially immediately useful, minimal training needed, no grooming, and no waiting a few years before stolen driver's licenses and suchlike could be creditably useful.

However, Eli and Abby are different girls. Maybe Abby can do what Eli did, and maybe not. I'm actually inclined to believe that Abby could do this better than Eli could simply because Abby seems so much freer, so much "looser". The word I usually use is "slinkier". Maybe she wouldn't grimace so much when having to admit it.

Even if she's only twelve years old, either girl has to be able to recognise that a twelve year old boy is worthless, and likely to remain so for quite some time, if survival is an issue, and I don't believe a normal twelve year old will think in terms of "years to come" or even "months" to come - most children that age that I've met have trouble planning for the "hours to come". If survival is an issue, I'm betting she'll grab something useful now.

This implies to me that either girl is looking for something other than somebody to watch over her. The basis of the developing relationship between E&O and A&O is purely emotional. A girl gets lonely, you know? And I rather suspect that it wouldn't have mattered to Eli if Oskar had been an Olya instead, and I'm thinking Abby wouldn't have minded if Owen had really been Ophelia. What's gender to somebody for whom sexuality probably doesn't seem very important, but for whom things like puzzles and wiping out at Pacman can be such terribly great fun? Somebody she can relate to more or less equally, at least for a time?

Don't forget that not only can kids show a dismaying inability to plan beyond day after next, they can also be impulsive. Sure, grab what you can while you can! Don't worry that it might not be good tomorrow or day after! It's good now, and since there's really no yesterday and tomorrow's just a nasty rumour you hear about on the streets, now is all there is.

One last thing about children: they can also be amazingly tenacious about holding onto something even when it isn't so good anymore. It was good once, maybe it'll be good again. But even if it's not so good anymore, what's the alternative? Eli went two hundred years without being involved with anybody at all, really, let alone somebody like Oskar. It might be another two hundred years before she meets somebody else. As for Abby, well, if she'd run across a better deal in the forty years she'd been with Thomas, then maybe there's something to be said for her capacity for true loyalty. I rather tend to suspect that what Abby would call a "quality man" is also rather rare. The alternative to having something that's not so good anymore is to have nothing at all.

So, they've skipped town. Abby is in a box at Owen's feet, and the train is taking them further and further away from dead kids, dead cops, dead lovers and dead dreams. Now what?

Yes, Abby is Mom, at least for a little while. A few years, I should think. She'll have to teach him everything she knows about staying alive. How to hide, knowing when to run, how to stay out of sight, where to find things. Some things she'll do really well, others not so much. Maybe she can show him how to take blood stains out of white clothes, but maybe she won't be so deft at teaching him how to cook and bake, or how to fix a leaky faucet.

Will she teach him how to hunt? There's two reasons I can see why she might: (a) she wants him to, or (b) he's going to anyway because it's what he wants. If it's because it's what she wants, then yes, maybe she's grooming him, but I'd think she'd remember what happened with Thomas, and maybe she'd think if she shielded him from this part of her life as much as she could, maybe Owen would stay sweeter longer. If she teaches him to hunt because he's going to anyway (had already tried unsuccessfully and potentially disastrously, maybe), it's not grooming, it's just survival on a somewhat different front.

She's Mom in other ways, too. Owen is a lost little lamb in a forest full of starving wolves, and she'll know it. She'll have to find him places to stay, clothes to wear, and so on, and she'll have to be there to comfort him when he's lonely and scared.

As time goes on, and an unturned Owen starts becoming a young man, he'll be less of a burden in that sense because he'll not only start being able to get his own food and clothes, and finding places to stay, he'll also be a bit more in tune with the times. He'll be adept at picking up how to use a computer, for example, or knowing how to figure out how to drive a car. He can show her things about the day's rapidly changing world. She'll then become more like a sister.

Eventually, Owen will reach a stage of life Abby can't touch or even really understand. He'll have the mind of an adult, with an adult's capacity for abstraction, foresight, and so on. He'll be in more of a position to be a kind of mentor. A father, in other words.

Throughout this entire transitional process, it won't be Abby that changes. She's stuck with being exactly what she is, what she was forty years ago and what she'll still be forty years from now: twelve years old. It'll be Owen who changes, and it'll be because of Owen that their relationship will change over time.

So, yes, Abby will be Mom, sister, daughter, friend... and very likely lover. As I understand it, part of the reason that intimate relations between a boy and his mother are forbidden is that they can really mess with a boy's head, and leave it messed up for life.

As for Thomas' apparently single-minded fixation on Abby? Well, what else has he ever really had? Yes, there's the "where would I go? what would I do?" kinds of things going through his mind, I should imagine, but I'd also tend to think it'd be unthinkable to leave the only girl he's ever really loved. The only girl he'd ever really been given the chance to love, really. I say he stopped growing in many important ways when he was still twelve not because he probably left home before finishing middle school, but because he didn't have the socialising benefits most kids have going through the teen-age years with different best friends, maybe a few different girlfriends, and so on. His leaving with Abby almost certainly meant arrested social development, and thus, emotional development. He grew up, yes, and grew older, but the Thomas we see in the movie is really just a twelve year old boy with a man's mind and body.

But Abby already knows this. She's been through it at least once. I'm hoping she'll find a better way for herself and Owen, because the curmudgeonly old Sauvin would like to see the kids have something good for the rest of their lives together.

I'm not having as much trouble with questioning Abby's motives.

[danielma]

For the record...I'm not trying to change your opinion...so please don't take it that way...I respect the effort you put into everything you wrote and I only write this reply to offer a bit of counter arguement. In no way is this designed to discredit your opinions (I actually really liked reading your reply and yes I think you have a ton of good points in there)

Abby is what she is. She's the same Abby she was forty years ago, and she'll still be the same Abby forty years from now. She's just stuck.

Maybe she really is planning it all out. Maybe she's "grooming" Owen to be her next provider. If that's true, she's an idiot.

If she is indeed planning it out, I don't see that as making her an idiot...rather I see it as making her quite cunning and calculating (considering if that were the case, it would mean she is preying on their vulnerability)...but once again that's an if

I thought Eli's approach was a lot more logical. She walked right up to a man she knew or strongly suspected to be morally or emotionally compromised, twisted a couple of screws, issued a command or two, and boom, done deal. She had her minder. Somebody who didn't need to be taught how to tie his own shoes or cook for himself, somebody who could probably be pressed into useful service, and somebody whose loyalty could be bought - whose loyalty could stay bought - with a suggestion, an implication and maybe a few unpleasant gropes. Maybe. This guy is potentially immediately useful, minimal training needed, no grooming, and no waiting a few years before stolen driver's licenses and suchlike could be creditably useful.

But you also have to look at the difference in the situation. We're talking about a paedophile who has sexual needs and sees an opportunity within Eli to fulfil them...also how long was she watching over Hakan before she made that move? We know that he watched over Oskar as he was stabbing the tree, so wouldn't that hint that he was watching over Hakan at least for a little while before making the approach. I don't think it was just on instinct.

Movie Hakan, not quite sure, although I still subscribe to the idea that they serve each other needs whilst having no real emotional connection...

Abby and Thomas, a relationship that is built around both emotional and practical needs. When she met Thomas, he wasn't a killer, but yet by the end of the relationship he was no different to what she is. This is why I find it ludicrous when I read the postings over at IMDB where people try to tell me that “Abby doesn't like boys who kill”...if that were the case, then why did Thomas start doing what he did? If it pained her that bad then why did she reap the benefits. Abby needs him, not only to serve the monster but to fulfil her own emotional needs.

However, Eli and Abby are different girls. Maybe Abby can do what Eli did, and maybe not. I'm actually inclined to believe that Abby could do this better than Eli could simply because Abby seems so much freer, so much "looser". The word I usually use is "slinkier". Maybe she wouldn't grimace so much when having to admit it.

Your right they are different girls and I see them as different girls. I think Eli is someone who starts off as being a girl who is far more emotionally shut down. Where as Abby seems far more in tune with her emotions. But its because of this that I sort of have to question it. With Eli, the relationship with Hakan runs around the 'need' only principle. She needs him, he needs her but it is unrequited emotionally

With Abby though, it runs around both the terms of emotional and needing in the practical sense. The human side of Abby may long for companionship, but underneath, she still has to serve the needs of the monster. This is where it gets potentially dangerous. Is this a girl who is in tune with her emotions and knows how to work that angle...or is it truly a girl who is stuck at 12. She clearly needs the emotional fulfilment, but the drive of the addiction is always going to plague her.

Even if she's only twelve years old, either girl has to be able to recognise that a twelve year old boy is worthless, and likely to remain so for quite some time, if survival is an issue, and I don't believe a normal twelve year old will think in terms of "years to come" or even "months" to come - most children that age that I've met have trouble planning for the "hours to come". If survival is an issue, I'm betting she'll grab something useful now.

Once again questionable. Considering that by taking both Thomas and Owen, she does have to fulfil the mother role in protecting them. In doing so, she would have to plan ahead, how does she gather shelter for them? How does she keep the both of them safe? Where does she get food for Owen? She can't just run on her impulses otherwise that makes her a pretty lousy protector. And we know that isn't the case considering she has done this once with Thomas. Once again we're not talking about an average 12 year old. Considering the age process isn't explained in either movie, you have to take into account that both girls have the possibility of being older then what they are. This is hinted with both Eli and Abby in both films.

This implies to me that either girl is looking for something other than somebody to watch over her. The basis of the developing relationship between E&O and A&O is purely emotional. A girl gets lonely, you know? And I rather suspect that it wouldn't have mattered to Eli if Oskar had been an Olya instead, and I'm thinking Abby wouldn't have minded if Owen had really been Ophelia. What's gender to somebody for whom sexuality probably doesn't seem very important, but for whom things like puzzles and wiping out at Pacman can be such terribly great fun? Somebody she can relate to more or less equally, at least for a time?

For the short time yes, hey I do agree that the relationship will work for a short time. But I'm willing to bet that the happiness will end eventually.

Don't forget that not only can kids show a dismaying inability to plan beyond day after next, they can also be impulsive. Sure, grab what you can while you can! Don't worry that it might not be good tomorrow or day after! It's good now, and since there's really no yesterday and tomorrow's just a nasty rumour you hear about on the streets, now is all there is.

Once again debatable...considering there is a degree of forewarning on her behalf. If she were someone who ran on impulses then wouldn't she live in the now and be all over Owen without a single moments hesitation? So why all the fore-warning? Why the gloominess? Why the look of it weighing on her mind? That doesn't sound like impulse, that sounds like someone living with the ghost of the past. I would say that novel Eli is the one that has the truest form of impulse and childish quality...but both Eli and Abby (film versions) seemed to be channelling a little bit of an older soul to them.

One last thing about children: they can also be amazingly tenacious about holding onto something even when it isn't so good anymore. It was good once, maybe it'll be good again. But even if it's not so good anymore, what's the alternative? Eli went two hundred years without being involved with anybody at all, really, let alone somebody like Oskar. It might be another two hundred years before she meets somebody else. As for Abby, well, if she'd run across a better deal in the forty years she'd been with Thomas, then maybe there's something to be said for her capacity for true loyalty. I rather tend to suspect that what Abby would call a "quality man" is also rather rare. The alternative to having something that's not so good anymore is to have nothing at all.

Again couldn't that also be read as the purpose of need? He may be broken, but he still obtains what I need? The relationship distances itself, but the need is still always going to be there. It's the one thing that remains consistent in the relationship. I viewed Abby and Thomas like it was a marriage that had burned out a long time ago...the only thing that matters is that need. So long as they both fufill the others need then it works on the fringe. Thomas is a consistent that will always be there for her, will always provide for her. And Abby, well its all Thomas knows, he gets a fleeting moment of the past that has long since gone by. They both get what they need, but like a broken marriage, it sort of has died a long time ago.

So, they've skipped town. Abby is in a box at Owen's feet, and the train is taking them further and further away from dead kids, dead cops, dead lovers and dead dreams. Now what?

Yes, Abby is Mom, at least for a little while. A few years, I should think. She'll have to teach him everything she knows about staying alive. How to hide, knowing when to run, how to stay out of sight, where to find things. Some things she'll do really well, others not so much. Maybe she can show him how to take blood stains out of white clothes, but maybe she won't be so deft at teaching him how to cook and bake, or how to fix a leaky faucet.

Will she teach him how to hunt? There's two reasons I can see why she might: (a) she wants him to, or (b) he's going to anyway because it's what he wants. If it's because it's what she wants, then yes, maybe she's grooming him, but I'd think she'd remember what happened with Thomas, and maybe she'd think if she shielded him from this part of her life as much as she could, maybe Owen would stay sweeter longer. If she teaches him to hunt because he's going to anyway (had already tried unsuccessfully and potentially disastrously, maybe), it's not grooming, it's just survival on a somewhat different front.

I don't see Owen as a hunter who is willing to do it on his own accord (although to be fair that could change over the years) but for right now he doesn't strike me as the type. He strikes me as a sad little boy who needs a hug, but not a hunter. Even in his “revenge fantasy” moments, he never struck me as a killer in training. I guess this is why I find it somewhat tragic and why I have to question whether Abby is the one that will plant the seed of the idea due simply to her ever undying need.

She's Mom in other ways, too. Owen is a lost little lamb in a forest full of starving wolves, and she'll know it. She'll have to find him places to stay, clothes to wear, and so on, and she'll have to be there to comfort him when he's lonely and scared.

As time goes on, and an unturned Owen starts becoming a young man, he'll be less of a burden in that sense because he'll not only start being able to get his own food and clothes, and finding places to stay, he'll also be a bit more in tune with the times. He'll be adept at picking up how to use a computer, for example, or knowing how to figure out how to drive a car. He can show her things about the day's rapidly changing world. She'll then become more like a sister.

Yes he'll be able to get his own food, clothes and finding places to stay. I think the rest may be a bit of a stretch though. There will always be the ever increasing body count to deal with....and the methods of survival will always dominate their existence (unless Abby resorts to the Novel Eli method, exchanging money for blood). I don't see Owen having much of a normal outside life, I think he will forever arrested in his development (much like Thomas has become) due to the need of survival that surrounds the both of them.

As for Thomas' apparently single-minded fixation on Abby? Well, what else has he ever really had? Yes, there's the "where would I go? what would I do?" kinds of things going through his mind, I should imagine, but I'd also tend to think it'd be unthinkable to leave the only girl he's ever really loved. The only girl he'd ever really been given the chance to love, really. I say he stopped growing in many important ways when he was still twelve not because he probably left home before finishing middle school, but because he didn't have the socialising benefits most kids have going through the teen-age years with different best friends, maybe a few different girlfriends, and so on. His leaving with Abby almost certainly meant arrested social development, and thus, emotional development. He grew up, yes, and grew older, but the Thomas we see in the movie is really just a twelve year old boy with a man's mind and body.

Isn't that arrested development due in part to Abby though? Much like Owen, I can't see Thomas having too many friends or connections to the outside world. They have to stay in hiding, and they have to stay on the move due to the ever increasing body count that follows them. There is no rest for the wicked here. The lives they lead are that of raw survival. To go back to LTROI for a second, I find it curious that in the Chinese Resturant scene that when Hakan is invited to join Lacke and crew, he very shyly says “No thanks”...granted the obvious reason is due to the nature surrounding Hakan, but the other reason could simply be his lack of social skills due to his time with Eli (granted if you want to follow the child hood friend theory)...same thing applies to Thomas, I can't see him having friends or connections on the outside...his life is one simply made up of survival as they flee from town to town...the only connection he has is with Abby...and that's a connection that is slowly dying due to age.

Same thing applies theoretically to Owen, the more time he will spend with her, the more the outside world will shut off to him due to the undying need of survival. That's what dominates both their lives. Everything else is secondary.

But Abby already knows this. She's been through it at least once. I'm hoping she'll find a better way for herself and Owen, because the curmudgeonly old Sauvin would like to see the kids have something good for the rest of their lives together.

More power to you, but personally I just don't see it happening at all

If Abby is truly a 12 year old then she clearly has no mental development to stop the same mistakes happening twice, because the instinct and desperate need of both companionship and survival will always out rule everything else

If Abby isn't a 12 year old and is in fact a cunning manipulator. Then the strings are being pulled quite nicely and everything is falling into place.

I'm not having as much trouble with questioning Abby's motives.

Wish I could have that mindset...no honestly I do...I want to like Abby, but these questions are always going to be there for me.

[soulcrusherprime]

This movie made me fall in love Chloe so yea
u can say I love abby

[intrige]

And I don't love Abby. LMI was "okat" but the plotchanges made her.. More.. Bad. I saw that Chloe played Abby to fall for Owen and that might have been the case also. But with former men in her sleeve, it just ain't that special anymore.
A remake made my bang the kitchentable with my hand, I was so mad. But that was before I knew the main characters would still be two kids and all that. And LMI can stand on its own and has infected some members here. LMI just ain'tmy thing.