Let me in ... what i liked about it

[let me out]

i loved the movie, let me in,there are a lot of things about the movie i prefer over the novel ,mainly the fact that abby is more like a girl than eli (elias). but i enjoyed alot of the horror elements of the novel that were toooo toooo strong to be in a film . anyway i loved chloe grace, i pictured her as eli the whole time i read the novel, she was amazing, captivating, awe inspiring ....

sooo anyway id like to know what everyone else thought about the movie and novel and the swedish movie aswell ,which i hated

[intrige]

My book Eli doesn't even look like Lina DEFENATLY NOT LIKE CHLOE. She's no Eli., she's Abby.
I sometimes say I wish they also will make a LTROI swedish series, not missing a single scene from the book. No matter how horrofying, that would be aswome. Swedish movie LTROI, THE BEST.
Welcome btw, love your username, Let me out

[DavidZahir]

I loved both films and the book.

The bits I especially liked about LMI were things that resonated with me--the inclusion of religion, for example. That Owen and Abby seemed on the brink of adolescence, maybe even having begun to cross the threshold, made it feel more like a love story to me. All three of the leads gave amazing performances, and moved me deeply. Many folks complain about the changes to the Hakkan character--and I myself found it disorienting--but the relationship between Thomas and Abby was a brilliant (as well as disturbing) thing to watch. I found the nuances that Kodi Smitt McPhee and Chloe Grace Moretz gave to their roles wildly impressive. The cinematography was frelling gorgeous!

I found the subtle changes of the dynamics and interplay between Owen and Abby (as opposed to Oscar and Eli) made it a genuinely different tale, but one to which I simply felt more attuned. That absolute focus on Owen's POV did much to suck me in, helping me feel his loneliness and as a result see the same loneliness in Abby as well as Thomas.

[Lee Kyle]

I also really liked the focus on Owen's POV. In fact, it made me a little uncertain what to do with the few scenes done from Abby's POV (eating the jogger, entering the hospital lobby). Don't get me wrong, I like the scenes from her POV and I'm glad they're in the movie. It's just they come off a little unusual to me since almost everything really is from Owen's POV. Actually I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say. But you seem to have a much larger working vocabulary. Maybe you could help me figure it out!

[gkmoberg1]

My favorite parts or elements, rather, of the story are those that differ from LTROI , either the book or the movie. I prefer these parts, where Reeves, steps away from the original story and devises his own course. The addition of the detective, for instance. The religious mother, the rawness of separation between Owen and his mother from Owen's father, the removal of many of the LTROI's other characters - all these elements are strong and drive this telling into its own place.

[ofelia]

My favorite parts or elements, rather, of the story are those that differ from LTROI , either the book or the movie. I prefer these parts, where Reeves, steps away from the original story and devises his own course. The addition of the detective, for instance. The religious mother, the rawness of separation between Owen and his mother from Owen's father, the removal of many of the LTROI's other characters - all these elements are strong and drive this telling into its own place.

Me too. I liked the fact that the police were really paying attention to all the murders and weird stuff. In the Swedish version you see a few shots of police but you never get a sense that they're doing much about it, everyone kind of just wanders around in a dream. Which is nice for the romance aspect. But LTROI felt like a romance film that just happened to have horror, and LMI like a horror film with a surprising and unusual romance. And the book had the balance exactly right as to be unnerving, the combination of touching/pitiful and frightening/revolting. But yeah, whenever there's a remake of something, which I do feel that it is and not just "inspired by", I like when it changes things up a good amount. LMI is darker, LTROI is... colder? more subdued.

I think this film was really refreshing to those Americans who saw it not knowing it was based on something else, because it's not like any other American horror I can think of (yet because of the replaced setting it does have an American feel). Maybe that doesn't make as much sense to non-Americans, or if you're the kind of person who watches foreign cinema all the time already (me ). I had to sort of step back and think about it. But that's part of why LMI has infected people, the difference of it. So much American horror has no substance, it's all about shock. Then you get a story that actually has a story, not just murderers/monsters/etc. killing people all over the place, and characters with a bit of development, and a careful little child romance on top of that. Quite unusual. Of course the book and Swedish film do this on a greater scale. But there is something kind of American Gothic about LMI that would make it a little more familiar.

[IDreamtIWasABee]

I found the subtle changes of the dynamics and interplay between Owen and Abby (as opposed to Oscar and Eli) made it a genuinely different tale, but one to which I simply felt more attuned.

Tell me more about this. I agree that the dynamic between Owen and Abby is very different to the dynamic between Eli and Oskar. It has something to do with Eli being much more vulnerable than Abby, who is more of a guardian angel.

[DavidZahir]

Tell me more about this.

Well, to begin with Abby feels more innocent--not because she's any less of a mass murderer, but she seems to disassociate. As much as possible she tries to keep 'the vampire' separate. Eli on the other hand has a more integrated personality. Not criticizing either choice, just saying the former resonates more with me.

Likewise Owen is just nicer than Oscar. The Swedish kid is a creep and I can easily see him growing up to be a very dangerous adult. Part of the genius of LTROI is that I still like him, still feel for him, still am happy he finds love. But Owen feels a lot more like me as a child. Unhappy. Lonely. Too smart and self-conscious to belong, hiding away in his room from an unhappy home life and losing himself in dreams. He's much more of a victim, as well, since his bullies are so much worse.

I like how the Abby/Owen feels so much more like a courtship than Eli/Oscar. The latter become friends, great friends, in the way children do. But the former have begun to enter puberty, which frankly was something I experienced rather early. Abby and Owen feel like a romance. They flirt. He's responding to her the way a young man does when he falls in love. When they go out it feels much more like a date. In the basement when she closes her eyes one gets the impression she hopes Owen will kiss her. Everything between them is less child-like and more budding teen. Again, not judging the two choices just noting my own reaction.

Plus there's the simple fact I'm not Swedish but American. The Swedish film has lots of little things that feel 'off' to me, not because they're wrong but because of a cultural difference. The lack of religion anywhere in LTROI feels strange, not because its right or wrong but because it isn't what I'm used to. Likewise the drinking. The circle of drunks in Blackeberg seems outside any norm of what I viscerally expect or understand. Such groups probably exist here in the USA but I've never experienced them. But Owen's mother's steady intake of wine into numbness feels only too familiar. That game with Oscar's bare back? Beautiful, but kinda alien. Video games on the other hand seem 'normal' (even though I almost never played such). Thomas Alfredson in an interview said LTROI was very Swedish in that so much is left unsaid. But in LMI people say things outright all the time, and that feels more natural to me because such is the milieu in which I've grown up. That Abby says at one point "I told you we couldn't be friends" (which cracks my heart every single time) that feels like something Eli would never say. Ditto "I knew you wouldn't let me."

[jetboy]

Likewise Owen is just nicer than Oscar. The Swedish kid is a creep and I can easily see him growing up to be a very dangerous adult. Part of the genius of LTROI is that I still like him, still feel for him, still am happy he finds love. But Owen feels a lot more like me as a child. Unhappy. Lonely. Too smart and self-conscious to belong, hiding away in his room from an unhappy home life and losing himself in dreams. He's much more of a victim, as well, since his bullies are so much worse.

I disagree with your labeling of Oskar and feel the makers of the story would disagree also simply because of the fact that setting a twelve year olds life in stone so early in such a negative way would be a movie of hopelessness, something I feel LTROI is the very opposite of. Oskar is not the twelve year old version of Hannibal Lector where even though he does horrible things (or dreams of doing horrible things) we still kind of root for him. Its the chance for change brought about by finding love that makes LTROI such a great movie for me at least. This is why he starts lifting weights and starts to stick up for himself, he is changing for the better.

One of the things I didnt care for in LMI is the lessening of what was Oskars violent fantasies. I agree that you dont have to be a knife wielder to be thought unhappy but the knife wielding and newspaper clipping illustrate the ugliness growing inside, and its the ugliness that makes people stop caring. Everyone wants to care for a hurt puppy dog but not the vicious pit bull even though it was neither of their fault. I like LTROI because it is saying that everyone is deserving of love and it is the lack of love thats makes Oskar and humanity do, or have the potential to do bad things.

[DavidZahir]

You're entitled to your opinion but so am I to mine. And I'll frankly admit some of my perception of Oscar stems from his portrayal in the book, in which he is a far more anti-social young human. Yet the nugget is there, I'm convinced, which is one reason he finds it so relatively easy to leave his quite-nice mom and the strewn corpses all around the pool at the end barely merit a glance from him.

For the record, I do believe both versions essentially tell stories of hope amidst what should be hopelessness.