Is Owen worried about going to hell?

[cmfireflies]

The question being asked here is answered much more explicitly in the Korean vampire film Thirst. In that one there is no doubt that the main character is worried about going to hell.

If I can back away from Owen in Let Me In a little bit, I get the impression that Reeves wanted to make some kind of social/political commentary on early 80s USA. I have no clear notion of this from watching the film, but I think he was trying to say that the Reagan era focus on the "evil without" was a scam to distract us from the "evil within." In this film it would be the corruption and failure of basic institutions. An uninvolved mother turning to the chablis. An absent father trying to phone in the parenting. Teachers and police that pointedly fail to establish any kind of saftey or order. It may be that Owen's question about evil is a inarticulate plea for protection. He knows very well what evil is, he sees it every day, but those who are charged with protecting him know nothing about it. His Mom gets it wrong, his Dad gets it wrong, the cop gets it very very wrong. Abby is the only one to get it right, from Owen's perpective.

I do agree this is what Reeves was trying to do. I think what made it on-screen was something very different. One thing that bugs me in LMI was that the movie has very little sympathy for its characters. I didn't see the corruption and failure of basic institutions so much as the corruption and failure of people. In LtROI, the novel especially, JAL took pains to establish how everyone, even Hakan, were fighting their individual battles-losing pitifully in some cases, but struggling to live up to some basic standard nonetheless. This did translate to the film a little bit, we see Oskar having fun with his dad before the inevitable disappointment, he has moments of playfulness with his mother, and some people see Virginia's final act as a last gesture of humanity.

LtROI had parents who failed Oskar, to be sure, but they were trying. LMI's mom was passed out drunk and Dad was plain absent. We see the damage the characters do, but we don't get any small glimpse of them doing good. (maybe one note saying I love you from the mom?) In the face of such apathy, it becomes not an indictment of the church, but of one particular drunk. It's not an indictment of the state of families in the '80s generally, but of one failed mom and dad.

To be an effective critique of institutions, there has to be good people hobbled by the institutions they serve. The closest thing that comes to this is the cop, but that whole sequence never hints that the cop's death was due to an inept police department. (In fact, the cop's actions would probably get him fired had he lived anyways.)

To sauvin: I believe the whole cult angle was due to the fact that Thomas was clearly protecting something by masking his identity and the fact that one line suggests that these types of murders stretches across multiple states.

[Luftwaffles]

I got the feeling that it's sort of like Huck Finn deciding to go "whole hog" and help Jim

"It was a close place. I took [the note] up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"- and tore it up."

I think that big moment for Owen is when he calls his dad. I think the question about "is there evil" on the surface plays into that whole overreaching theme, BUT I think it's his last thread of belonging to that world that he feels. And when his dad asks about his mother making him think that, it's sort of like the nail in the coffin for him, and he's free to move over onto the other end of the spectrum.

[sauvin]

I think that big moment for Owen is when he calls his dad. I think the question about "is there evil" on the surface plays into that whole overreaching theme, BUT I think it's his last thread of belonging to that world that he feels. And when his dad asks about his mother making him think that, it's sort of like the nail in the coffin for him, and he's free to move over onto the other end of the spectrum.

Sometimes it seems to me there's precious little difference between being "free" and being lost.

Edit: 5 Novembre 2011, replaced a "bad word" with [deleted] to comply with renewed restrictions on language.

[DavidZahir]

To be an effective critique of institutions, there has to be good people hobbled by the institutions they serve. The closest thing that comes to this is the cop, but that whole sequence never hints that the cop's death was due to an inept police department. (In fact, the cop's actions would probably get him fired had he lived anyways.)

Well, I personally find that LMI's critique of institutions aims more at the human failings which lead to what goes wrong. Nor do I agree with the first sentence of the above quote, mostly because it seems far too sweeping, too formulaic to be much use in describing reality. More, it seems frankly inaccurate. I went away from LMI finding only one primary or supporting character without some sympathy--Kenny's brother. Kenny himself comes across as very damaged goods, someone twisted into something horrible. His minions at least had a sense that they could go too far. The principal of the school might be viewed as a bureaucratic automaton in isolation but we don't see her that way--we see her in the context of an entire cast who seem ordinary, neither monsters nor saints for the most part. Even the monsters frankly seem quite tragically human.

Owen's situation seems untenable ultimately due to it being a situation, one with dozens of factors piling up on top of him, until at last he finds this shred of light in his personal darkness. But his mom seems loving, but weak. Ditto his dad. The teachers are trying. Methinks something that does come in for a lot of criticism is precisely this attitude that some thing is to blame, some one we can point at and thus absolve ourselves of responsibility. The idea that evil is something outside, something other, confuses and misleads in the end. Just as looking for a "moral" or a "lesson" in every work of art distorts one's perceptions of art.

[lombano]

But his mom seems loving, but weak. Ditto his dad.

I disagree. Surely the dad could at least try to have a proper conversation rather than just bitching about his ex. The mother could take the trouble of staying sober some of the time (at least Oskat's Mum managed that much, and even his Dad was sober some of the time - and Oskar's mother's passing the parcel is not quite as bad as doing nothing at all). I don't either one is trying at all.

The teachers are trying.

I don't think we know that. Thye might be, but we never see them doing anything that couldn't be interpreted as just going through the motions (the talk with the principal). This is also true in the original film; in the book, Avila undeniably does try.

His minions at least had a sense that they could go too far

That's not saying much. Sure, better than the alternative, but still. Besides, there's self-preservation to consider: murder will generally get you into bigger trouble than more run-of-the-mill bullying.

Just as looking for a "moral" or a "lesson" in every work of art distorts one's perceptions of art.

Agreed.

[DavidZahir]

Surely the dad could at least try to have a proper conversation rather than just bitching about his ex.

He's worried about his Ex turning Owen into a fundamentalist zombie. That seems perfectly legitimate to me, and pretty easy to understand when a boy calls him in the middle of the night and asks such an odd question. What else is he gonna think?

I don't think we know that. Thye might be, but we never see them doing anything that couldn't be interpreted as just going through the motions (the talk with the principal).

The only teacher we ever see do much of anything is Mr. Zorin, and he seems like a good guy to me.

That's not saying much.

Not saying it is much, but 'tis something and more than Kenny's brother had.

One thing that sticks in my mind is Romeo and Juliet. I got a Theatre Degree at my university, and a student I knew who shared some classes was trying to figure out "the lesson" of Shakespeare's first major tragedy (after Titus Andronicus). He tied himself up in knots trying to figure out who was to blame for the play's tragedy, what moral we're supposed to get out of it, etc. And I found myself saying something in response which was wiser than I knew: The play, I said, isn't about whose fault it is. Any one of a thousand details might have fallen the other way and things turned out okay for the two characters. Much of what happened proved unforseeable. But in watching the play we experience the tragedy of what happened. The ancient greeks had a word for this, one we still use today: Catharsis.

That is what Romeo and Juliet is all about, the experience of what happened. As J.R.R.Tolkien might have put it, it was a history and one took from it what one could by the simple fact of reading and to some extent living it. History, not allegory.

Methinks the same can be said of LMI.

[cmfireflies]

A student I knew who shared some classes was trying to figure out "the lesson" of Shakespeare's first major tragedy (after Titus Andronicus). He tied himself up in knots trying to figure out who was to blame for the play's tragedy

Paris, he should have been a better fighter.

As for the moral of LMI, isn't it "listen to Ronald Reagan?"

[gattoparde59]

One thing that sticks in my mind is Romeo and Juliet. I got a Theatre Degree at my university, and a student I knew who shared some classes was trying to figure out "the lesson" of Shakespeare's first major tragedy (after Titus Andronicus). He tied himself up in knots trying to figure out who was to blame for the play's tragedy, what moral we're supposed to get out of it, etc. And I found myself saying something in response which was wiser than I knew: The play, I said, isn't about whose fault it is. Any one of a thousand details might have fallen the other way and things turned out okay for the two characters. Much of what happened proved unforseeable. But in watching the play we experience the tragedy of what happened. The ancient greeks had a word for this, one we still use today: Catharsis.

Yeah, they are star crossed lovers, but they are also rather explicitly Montague and Capatulet crossed lovers. I agree that a really good tragedy helps us to experience the pain of the characters in the story, but I can't help noticing that in the scene where Owen speaks to the disembodied voice of his father over the telephone, we see and feel Owen's pain, but his father plainly does not. Owen's Dad is simply not there for his son. When asked about evil, the only thing that his father can think of is his stupid petty quarrels with his ex-wife. Owen has no parents, nobody he can turn to and this is not because they were struck by lightening. They are not there to experience the pain that is so obvious to us.

[DavidZahir]

Mind you, I'm not claiming Owen's parents are perfect, nor that his pain is anything but soul-searing.

But they aren't monsters. Neither physically or sexually abuse him. Both evidently have made sure he has fresh food, a home, clean clothes, etc. Each is genuinely worried about his well-being, albeit through the lens of their own problems (in this they are exactly like the rest of us). They aren't particularly good parents, but they might easily be worse. Which is damning with faint praise. But then, no parents are perfect. Owen's have their own pains, going through a divorce about which we know very little.

Seems too easy to look at Owen's (poor) parents and say "Aha! Here is the source of Owen's pain!" Consider for a moment how much easier the lad's life might have been if it weren't for Kenny! As bullies go, this guy is an extra special dose of evil, clearly disturbed rather than just mean. Had Owen been the victim only of more ordinary bullying, would he have gone to such extremes in the end? Or if Abby simply never came to town, he'd've probably survived because at least one teacher--Zorin--certainly had his eye on both Kenny and Owen. What if just one more teacher had been like Zorin?

Another possibility--what if Thomas hadn't been caught? Would Owen ever have left with Abby? Or what if Owen had had an older brother, less shy and more physical than himself?

Much like Romeo and Juliet, the 'reality' of this story resists simplicity. In the end, I even found myself feeling sorry for the budding psychopath Kenny and the mass-murdering Thomas.

[lombano]

Surely the dad could at least try to have a proper conversation rather than just bitching about his ex.

He's worried about his Ex turning Owen into a fundamentalist zombie. That seems perfectly legitimate to me, and pretty easy to understand when a boy calls him in the middle of the night and asks such an odd question. What else is he gonna think?

He could've asked, really asked, what was going on in Owen's life. Instead he jumps to a convenient conclusion (as it dumps all the blame on his ex, and it assumes there's nothing else wrong). Also, we never see him take any actual interest in Owen, it's Owen who has to initiate contact if there's to be any.

But they aren't monsters. Neither physically or sexually abuse him. Both evidently have made sure he has fresh food, a home, clean clothes, etc. Each is genuinely worried about his well-being, albeit through the lens of their own problems (in this they are exactly like the rest of us). They aren't particularly good parents, but they might easily be worse. Which is damning with faint praise. But then, no parents are perfect.

Not saying it is much, but 'tis something and more than Kenny's brother had.

I think I've mentioned this anecdote before - a friend of mine was told by his mother: 'Son, don't be upset, there are some who are uglier than you.' There is always another who is worse; that's not much comfort. For me the key difference is those that are trying (and not just going through the motions, like the mother), even if they fail, and those that don't. In the case of the parents, surely the signs he was troubled were obvious (granted, maybe one needs to be sober some of the time to notice) - causing serious injury by hitting someone with a metal pole surely counts as Serious Business, Owen seemingly has no friends, etc.

The only teacher we ever see do much of anything is Mr. Zorin, and he seems like a good guy to me.

Yes, but that's just the impression we get, rather than having solid facts either way. I'd say the same of film Avila.

In the end, I even found myself feeling sorry for the budding psychopath Kenny and the mass-murdering Thomas.

Sort of agreed in the case of Thomas - he really did everything humanly possible for his beloved, not many other characters here do evil for reasons that aren't just self-serving.

Paris, he should have been a better fighter.

No, the moral of R&J is 'Don't do masked balls, they only lead to trouble.'

As for the moral of LMI, isn't it "listen to Ronald Reagan?"

No, it's 'Don't break into someone's home without a warrant and without backup just because the floor squeaked. Evidence obtained may be ruled inadmissible in a court of law and the whole thing 's a pain in the neck.'