Let Me In Ending Explained

[PeteMork]

Just found this article in ScreenRant in which Steven Cuffari presents his interpretation of the ending of Let Me in.

https://screenrant.com/let-me-in-movie- ... explained/

If we accept his premise that Owen will be Abby's caretaker until he becomes too old and has to be replaced, are his conclusions necessarily correct?

This referenced article in Steven's article reminds us of a major omission in LMI that we all know changes a fundamental understanding of Abby's and Owen's (Eli's and Oskar's) relationship. Dose this omission make it easier or harder to accept Steven's conclusions?

https://screenrant.com/let-me-in-remake ... der-scene/

[Jameron]

I don't have a problem accepting the idea that Owen becomes Abby's caretaker. In part for the reasons mentioned in the article but more importantly because of the photo strip where we see Abby and a young Thomas seemingly very happy together. I'm sure many people see the photo strip is a foreshadowing of Owen's future if he stays with Abby. Not to forget the deliberate inclusion of the "Eat some now, save some for later..." that Owen sings to himself, could this be another foreshadowing where Thomas is the "now" and Owen is the "later"?

There is also a reference to both Thomas' and Owen's addictive personality. Owen is sat in the shared gardens feeding his addiction (candy) when Thomas emerges from the building also feeding his addiction (cigarettes). They stare at each other for a couple of beats not knowing they are both addicted to Abby at this point. Could this moment be a symbolic passing of the torch as we see Thomas' relationship with Abby starting to unravel where Owen's is just beginning?

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[PeteMork]

I don't have a problem accepting the idea that Owen becomes Abby's caretaker. In part for the reasons mentioned in the article but more importantly because of the photo strip where we see Abby and a young Thomas seemingly very happy together. I'm sure many people see the photo strip is a foreshadowing of Owen's future if he stays with Abby. Not to forget the deliberate inclusion of the "Eat some now, save some for later..." that Owen sings to himself, could this be another foreshadowing where Thomas is the "now" and Owen is the "later"? ...

Lee Kyle in his compelling epilogue to Let Me In (http://let-the-right-one-in.com/fancont ... -me-in-2-0) takes a different path, despite the inferences in the photo strip, as have others in the FF area. But in the film itself the inference seems clear. Reeves intends for his audience to follow that line of thinking.
But if he had included JAL's castration scene from the novel, would it have worked? Would an American audience be up to a possible homosexual relationship, or as in LTROI a relationship based on unconditional love? A much more challenging problem, which Reeves either didn't understand in the original or was unwilling to risk in his film, IMO.

Also, since Owen is only 12, it's difficult for me to believe that he consciously and deliberately chose the path of 'evil' when fleeing with Abby. I think love is blind, especially in one so young and naive .

[sauvin]

What Mr. Mork said. At all of twelve years old and no relevant prior experience, Abby may have seemed like the last, best dance before the music stops and it's time to face the Grim Reaper, even if she were a bit "different". She may never have said the words, but she did prove beyond any doubt that she gave a damn whether or not he even lived. What's more, she listened to him, probably a novel experience, and heard both what he said and what he didn't.

I have a few problems with the ending "explained".

One has to do with Abby's alleged vulnerability. Nothing in LMI (or movie LTROI, for that matter) says one darn thing about snoozing for days or weeks at a whack and then being "small again". Routinely taking down fully grown men with more than twice her apparent mass and probably more than thrice her apparent physical strength, I'm having trouble imagining the little doll being afraid of anything except angry, shouting throngs bearing flaming torches, shovels, axes and pitchforks. Even then, what's to say fear won't lend her (extra) wings? She doesn't really get cold (Eli "forgot" how to get cold?), so it's not like she actually needs heated apartments with hot running water, so she doesn't really need anybody who can sign rental agreements or leases. With strictly what the movie provides, what does Abby really need from the world? All she really needs is a place where she won't be found while the sun is up.

Another problem I have is in Cuffari's insistence in viewing the movie through a lens of black and white morality. LMI might very well be a movie of seduction into the dark side, but it's a lot more about the seduction itself than the darkness of the side Owen is slipping into. Abby isn't really a criminal, she's just an obligate predator trying to survive. She's not rolling people over for their land, livestock, gold, children, spouses or for political or religious power. She's rolling them because when she stops rolling, she'll die.

Owen's moral position is quite a bit more tenuous because he not only does have a choice, he has a socially imposed duty to do what he can to protect the community, but the community that implicitly demands this protection affords him in turn virtually none. Who misses this subtle point also tends to be blind to the destructive power of a multi-tiered clique dynamic: towards the end of the movie, Owen is doing to the herd as had been done unto him, albeit manifold.

When she isn't the monster (or being overcast by it), she's actually kinda sweet. She's curious, playful, attentive and protective. So is he, really. They could have been really good kids and grown up into really good people if Fate hadn't chucked them into a septic tank. There's no right or wrong in such a place, there can't be, there's just the one-minute-to-the-next imperative to avoid drowning in other people's social filth.

Did Owen make any decisions? Maybe - but if so, they'd been heavily influenced. He saw the really sweet girl who kissed him in congratulations where others condemned him, and he looked upon the monster who'd just saved his life with more than just "relief and awe". There was also profound fear. As he was singing "eat some now, save some for later" in the train, it seemed less that he was content with any "decision" he might have made and more that he was happy that Fate seemed to have finally plucked him out of the septic tank and tossed him into a vastly preferable swamp.

[PeteMork]

One has to do with Abby's alleged vulnerability. Nothing in LMI (or movie LTROI, for that matter) says one darn thing about snoozing for days or weeks at a whack and then being "small again". Routinely taking down fully grown men with more than twice her apparent mass and probably more than thrice her apparent physical strength, I'm having trouble imagining the little doll being afraid of anything except angry, shouting throngs bearing flaming torches, shovels, axes and pitchforks. Even then, what's to say fear won't lend her (extra) wings? She doesn't really get cold (Eli "forgot" how to get cold?), so it's not like she actually needs heated apartments with hot running water, so she doesn't really need anybody who can sign rental agreements or leases. With strictly what the movie provides, what does Abby really need from the world? All she really needs is a place where she won't be found while the sun is up.

Yeah. Where did that come from? Vulnerable is the last word I would use to describe Abby. Loneliness might be the first however; and most likely the prime reason she seeks company. Why and when her 'helper' begins killing for her has got to be unpredictable, and likely unreliable--unless she is as conniving as Reeves and others seem to think she is.

Another problem I have is in Cuffari's insistence in viewing the movie through a lens of black and white morality. LMI might very well be a movie of seduction into the dark side, but it's a lot more about the seduction itself than the darkness of the side Owen is slipping into. Abby isn't really a criminal, she's just an obligate predator trying to survive. She's not rolling people over for their land, livestock, gold, children, spouses or for political or religious power. She's rolling them because when she stops rolling, she'll die.

I agree. We've discussed this often, using the allegory of a tiger or lion as a natural predator. No evil attached there; only the inconvenience to the prey.

Owen's moral position is quite a bit more tenuous because he not only does have a choice, he has a socially imposed duty to do what he can to protect the community, but the community that implicitly demands this protection affords him in turn virtually none. Who misses this subtle point also tends to be blind to the destructive power of a multi-tiered clique dynamic: towards the end of the movie, Owen is doing to the herd as had been done unto him, albeit manifold.

Once the 'herd' becomes engaged in ending Owen's life, I believe he has earned the right to rewrite his social contract.

[sauvin]

Yeah, I know, we're both preaching to the choir, sort of. A major part of my beef with this "ending explained" had to do with this "either it's white or it's black, there ain't no in between" kind of moral thinking. People in general may think in such terms most of the time, but people in general aren't actually nearly that stupid, they just use black/white thinking because it's what they're taught and because it saves mental effort. I honestly believe that a sizeable chunk of the population would be able to see Owen's plight for what it is, and this "ending explainer" insults them by assuming they can't.

What I didn't mention outright in my earlier post is also something we've gone over time and time again in the past, that Abby is apparently a fully human girl except when she isn't, and even that isn't a black/white thing. Maybe she's 100% the monster when she's bouncing men off tunnel walls, and she's the sweet little girl whose monster is trying to break free while she chats with a possible future boyfriend on the jungle gym with her stomach growling like a mountain lion, but girl who closes her eyes, smiling in the basement hangout expecting a pleasant surprise had me totally convinced. She also had me convinced when she dismembered a few psychos in the pool but let Owen be - not 100% the monster here, not eating or killing everything in sight, but a monster with an enraged girl riding on its back protecting somebody she loves. She'd been with her old boyfriend almost for as long as he'd even been alive, sharing tender moments with him, bickering with him (sometimes the yeller, sometimes the yellee) as if they'd been faithfully married this whole time, obeying him even when she didn't want to and crying when she understood her old boyfriend had definitively had it.

I don't think she shared (novel) Eli's confusion about what love actually is. Both novel and movie Eli may have been survivor buddies, but they were nothing more than that: partners in a nasty business.

Little girls can't abide facing life alone. Eli seems to have come to this realisation rather late in life, and it's Oskar who taught her this (yeah, yeah, Eli isn't a girl, but little boys don't much care for being alone, either), but it's something that Abby must have known all along.

In this sense, yes, Abby is vulnerable, but that's not what the "explainer" meant.

[dongregg]

Yeah, I know, we're both preaching to the choir, sort of. A major part of my beef with this "ending explained" had to do with this "either it's white or it's black, there ain't no in between" kind of moral thinking. People in general may think in such terms most of the time, but people in general aren't actually nearly that stupid, they just use black/white thinking because it's what they're taught and because it saves mental effort. I honestly believe that a sizeable chunk of the population would be able to see Owen's plight for what it is, and this "ending explainer" insults them by assuming they can't.
.

I call black and white thinking the "binary fallacy." If one action is right, the other action is wrong. That doesn't leave room for both to be wrong or both to be right. But that just looking at life from our lofty perch. Since most judgments require action, black and white thinking works, with little thought and no metacognition.

Going through our days like this is so universal (and perhaps neither stupid nor lazy), it would seem to have enough survival value to have persisted persistently. (I know--that is redundundant.)

Well, it could be stupid and lazy, but that suggests it's just our species that's stupid and lazy.

[cmfireflies]

About a decade ago, I spent loads of time on the IMDb message boards of both Let the Right One In and Let Me In arguing that Eli is good and kind while Abby is evil. Mainly it was driven by my dislike of LMI and how Reeves copied 90% of the movie but completely changed Thomas's character and backstory, making-perhaps unintentionally-Abby a much less sympathetic character.

Giving her every benefit of the doubt, Abby is still a terrible human being because of the way she treats Thomas. If she still loves him, her love is cheap because she doesn't even bother going with him when he is getting her food. It makes sense for Eli to boss Hakan around because those were the terms of their agreement. Reeves just transposed the same actions on Abby and Thomas with an entirely new history. If Thomas had been with Abby all his life, why was he hunting for Abby alone? She could have at least been a look-out, maybe hiding in a tree for victims/witnesses? They must have killed together at some point, but in the movie it seems like Abby had foisted all the disadvantages of being a vampire-the killing, the alienation-onto Thomas without any of the advantages-the immorality. This creates the impression that Abby doesn't want a partner, she wants her boyfriends to be temporary, disposable and probably Owen is headed for the same fate.

That's why I prefer to think of Abby as purely manipulative. She knows what she wants and how to get it. It's only "evil" if we still consider her human. A lion ambushing prey isn't evil, brood parasites aren't evil for taking advantage of others. Abby fails as a human but could be/is a great monster as LMI is more morality tale than LtROI is and that's why it lends itself to binary interpretations.
I just really love Eli and don't like Abby.

[PeteMork]

About a decade ago, I spent loads of time on the IMDb message boards of both Let the Right One In and Let Me In arguing that Eli is good and kind while Abby is evil. Mainly it was driven by my dislike of LMI and how Reeves copied 90% of the movie but completely changed Thomas's character and backstory, making-perhaps unintentionally-Abby a much less sympathetic character.

Giving her every benefit of the doubt, Abby is still a terrible human being because of the way she treats Thomas. If she still loves him, her love is cheap because she doesn't even bother going with him when he is getting her food. It makes sense for Eli to boss Hakan around because those were the terms of their agreement. Reeves just transposed the same actions on Abby and Thomas with an entirely new history. If Thomas had been with Abby all his life, why was he hunting for Abby alone? She could have at least been a look-out, maybe hiding in a tree for victims/witnesses? They must have killed together at some point, but in the movie it seems like Abby had foisted all the disadvantages of being a vampire-the killing, the alienation-onto Thomas without any of the advantages-the immorality. This creates the impression that Abby doesn't want a partner, she wants her boyfriends to be temporary, disposable and probably Owen is headed for the same fate.

That's why I prefer to think of Abby as purely manipulative. She knows what she wants and how to get it. It's only "evil" if we still consider her human. A lion ambushing prey isn't evil, brood parasites aren't evil for taking advantage of others. Abby fails as a human but could be/is a great monster as LMI is more morality tale than LtROI is and that's why it lends itself to binary interpretations.
I just really love Eli and don't like Abby.

I tend to agree. When I first saw the title, I was afraid of what Reeves was going to do with it, long before it came out. There's a world of difference between the advice, "Let the right one in" and the imperative, "Let me in." I posted my fears on the IMDb site, and got nothing but negative reactions from other posters. When a preview finally showed the film strip, I knew I had been right. Reeves substantially changed the meaning of the original film and the book that inspired it. We've had enough interchanges with JAL himself to be certain of what he intended.
But in fairness, I'm not certain Abby is entirely manipulative. She still could be terribly lonely, she could still desire the company of someone her own age, and at the same time, be defenseless against the creature that lives within her and it's own goals, as Sauvin implied above.

[dongregg]

I haunted IMDb, too, but only LTROI. I adopted TA's statement that you do a remake to make a better film, not two years later to bring in money on the coattails of the successful first film. I also like JAL's reaction to shortening the title; he wondered if they would also shorten his name.

That LMI had even limited success, IMO, is that it was based on JAL's unique story. But to rip it off, not to pay homage or to make a better film.