Spoonyone reviews Let Me In

[God of Vampires]

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/10/16/ ... in-review/
This is kind of an intresting video, especially since the Spoony One is one of my favorite internet critics. He do talk about LTROI as well, and I have to say that he totally misses the point of the ending and the true nature of Abby/Eli. But to be fair, his interpretation is quite common among non-infected and would still make an intresting story if that would be the case. My other gripe is that he complements LMI for making the "cycle" clearer, too bad there is no cycle , not for Eli at least. But whatever, as long as he likes it .

I think this is an intresting example of the perspective of a non-infected, not only on LMI, but on the story as a whole. I think these kind of theories on the ending is actually quite intresting .

[ColBlair]

I do agree with you there, he does miss the point about the true nature of Abby/Eli on why they needed caretakers and how they started to find friendship and acceptance. I'm glad that he liked it though too and he ranks it also on his top 10 movies for 2010 as well. Maybe he has changed his mind about the film though after viewing the commentary. I never saw a cycle when I seen the movies at all. There are many possibilities for LTROI and LMI as a whole and not just one point in particular for one of them.

You are right about one thing, it is an interesting perspective on a non-infected on the entire story of LMI and LTROI as a whole.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/10/16/ ... in-review/
This is kind of an intresting video, especially since the Spoony One is one of my favorite internet critics. He do talk about LTROI as well, and I have to say that he totally misses the point of the ending and the true nature of Abby/Eli. But to be fair, his interpretation is quite common among non-infected and would still make an intresting story if that would be the case. My other gripe is that he complements LMI for making the "cycle" clearer, too bad there is no cycle , not for Eli at least. But whatever, as long as he likes it .

I think this is an intresting example of the perspective of a non-infected, not only on LMI, but on the story as a whole. I think these kind of theories on the ending is actually quite intresting .

[cmfireflies]

I really liked his review. Was a bit sad that he didn't get a chance to see LtROI with the correct subtitles though.

Having said that, it's reviews like his that ruined LMI for me. I went in expecting a different story than I got. I need some confirmation on this this, just to make sure I'm not completely crazy:

Ok, so my feeling that I got from LMI was that every actor played their part as if the character Abby was evil. That is, when prepping for their roles every actor viewed the story as Spoonyone did. Everyone, that is, except for Chloe. She actually played Abby, not "like an animal" but basically like a tragic 12 year old girl who a)can't control her murderous urges and b)is doomed to outlive everyone she loves. This really soured the entire plot for me. It's like the characters were never on the same page storywise. I guess the end result is that it makes LMI more tragic, but if that was what Reeves was going for I really think he messed it up. Not too badly, but messed up the upper layers of the story. (That didn't make sense, did it?) It's like there's an "evil Abby" shaped hole in the story. The existence of a "super-intelligent animal" would actually make the story thematically complete. But instead of providing that Chloe gave us basically a tortured girl with a really hideous split personality, played Abby as pathetic instead of manipulative. But Abby's actions are just as evil as a hypothetical "manipulative vampire" just that either she didn't seemed to be aware of the consequences or that her particular brand of evil was not so much calculating as weak and passive.

I mean, weak and passive is OK, but then Owen should really rescue her, or at the very least truly love her. But the changes Reeves made point to Owen basically really being horrified of Abby but goes with her anyways because there aren't any better options. And a horrified and cornered Owen is OK too, but that seems to demand a stronger vampire character to act as a foil for the Regan speeches or to symbolize the failings of 80's society. So the end result of LMI seems very muddled. As if nothing in the story mattered, no characters either rose above their circumstances or even clearly buckled under pressure and took the easy way out, the story seemed to be about two people, neither good nor evil, just taking the path of least resistance to a horrible future. (Which, would also have made a good theme, but instead of highlighting the fatalistic or nihilistic element, Reeves went with the good/evil dichotomy, which kind of demand a stronger "winning" side.)

To sum up Chloe played Abby too nuanced for the story's own good, or the other characters had a different concept of the plot than she did, or Reeves screwed the whole thing up by adding that backstory and not changing any of the other scenes thereby rendering the plot inconsistent. Or I'm just really overthinking this.

Back on topic, good review, very misleading.

[ColBlair]

i liked his review too. He even praised the actors for a fine job too. I never saw Abby as a manipulator, but like what you said, a tragic 12 year old who outlives everyone who she loves. When he said that Abby was manipulating Owen, it left a really bad taste in my mouth. To me, I feel that Owen will not have the same fate as Thomas though. I like to think she wanted to be with him and she wanted him to be with her forever. I look at the movie two ways, 1) She and Owen are both vampires and they will still live in darkness due to the fact of their nature. 2) Owen is the new caretaker and Abby is back to being alone. I don't think you're overthinking the movie though, it was an interesting opinion that you gave out.

I really liked his review. Was a bit sad that he didn't get a chance to see LtROI with the correct subtitles though.

Having said that, it's reviews like his that ruined LMI for me. I went in expecting a different story than I got. I need some confirmation on this this, just to make sure I'm not completely crazy:

Ok, so my feeling that I got from LMI was that every actor played their part as if the character Abby was evil. That is, when prepping for their roles every actor viewed the story as Spoonyone did. Everyone, that is, except for Chloe. She actually played Abby, not "like an animal" but basically like a tragic 12 year old girl who a)can't control her murderous urges and b)is doomed to outlive everyone she loves. This really soured the entire plot for me. It's like the characters were never on the same page storywise. I guess the end result is that it makes LMI more tragic, but if that was what Reeves was going for I really think he messed it up. Not too badly, but messed up the upper layers of the story. (That didn't make sense, did it?) It's like there's an "evil Abby" shaped hole in the story. The existence of a "super-intelligent animal" would actually make the story thematically complete. But instead of providing that Chloe gave us basically a tortured girl with a really hideous split personality, played Abby as pathetic instead of manipulative. But Abby's actions are just as evil as a hypothetical "manipulative vampire" just that either she didn't seemed to be aware of the consequences or that her particular brand of evil was not so much calculating as weak and passive.

I mean, weak and passive is OK, but then Owen should really rescue her, or at the very least truly love her. But the changes Reeves made point to Owen basically really being horrified of Abby but goes with her anyways because there aren't any better options. And a horrified and cornered Owen is OK too, but that seems to demand a stronger vampire character to act as a foil for the Regan speeches or to symbolize the failings of 80's society. So the end result of LMI seems very muddled. As if nothing in the story mattered, no characters either rose above their circumstances or even clearly buckled under pressure and took the easy way out, the story seemed to be about two people, neither good nor evil, just taking the path of least resistance to a horrible future. (Which, would also have made a good theme, but instead of highlighting the fatalistic or nihilistic element, Reeves went with the good/evil dichotomy, which kind of demand a stronger "winning" side.)

To sum up Chloe played Abby too nuanced for the story's own good, or the other characters had a different concept of the plot than she did, or Reeves screwed the whole thing up by adding that backstory and not changing any of the other scenes thereby rendering the plot inconsistent. Or I'm just really overthinking this.

Back on topic, good review, very misleading.

[DavidZahir]

Ok, so my feeling that I got from LMI was that every actor played their part as if the character Abby was evil. That is, when prepping for their roles every actor viewed the story as Spoonyone did. Everyone, that is, except for Chloe.

This is the most puzzling comment I've ever read about the film. It seems like a subtle but telling criticism, but the more I think on the actual words the more they seem to miss a vital point. Abby is both evil and innocent. She is a lonely, twelve-year-old child and a centuries-old monster that devours lives.

Which is also my comment about this review. I honestly don't like the tendency to see the world in binary terms--black/white, good/evil, male/female, young/old, wise/foolish, etc. Seems to me that we all encompass all extremes, all possibilities in some way or another. So does the world.

[cmfireflies]

This is the most puzzling comment I've ever read about the film. It seems like a subtle but telling criticism, but the more I think on the actual words the more they seem to miss a vital point. Abby is both evil and innocent. She is a lonely, twelve-year-old child and a centuries-old monster that devours lives.

This is exactly where I think LtROI did a better job than LMI. Eli was a child, sweet and innocent, and also a murderous monster, the two aspects are not Jekyll and Hyde, but the same person, (IMO) Oskar meets both, and falls in love with the child-falls deeply enough to leave with the monster.

I don't see this complexity in LMI. Oh sure, the scenes were all there, the characters went through the same motions, but the underlying theme in LMI seemed not to be so much that even flawed and damaged people can be capable of giving and receiving love, but more about the omnipresence of darkness within ourselves and the various things we use to keep that darkness at bay and what happens when we fail.

I don't know if this is entirely fair, but I think that LMI crossed a line depicting how horrible Owen's life was. He wasn't so much running away with Abby as he was running away from everything else. More so than LtROI, LMI showed Owen with nothing except for Abby. His misery really cheapened the emotional impact of his choice to go with Abby, it was a choice between something and nothing. In LtROI, we see Oskar choosing Eli, because he loves her enough to sacrifice everything else. Owen has nothing to sacrifice, he's dooming himself to a horrible future because he has nothing in the present.

If Reeves's intention was to illustrate this point, to turn the story into a tale of Owen's downfall, I think it would work better if Abby was evil. And what I meant when I said that everyone other actor played their roles as if Abby was evil is that Kodi, I think, didn't play a boy falling in love, he played Owen as falling in awe. There's a little change between LMI and LtROI which I think is important: When he was whipped by the bullies, Owen was threatened into telling a lie, whereas Oskar made up the lie himself. Owen's defining trait is submissiveness, he does what he's told. And it's not hard to draw similarities between the bullies and Abby and how they treat Owen.

Again I don't think LMI works as a love story, (even if people say you can see it both ways). The reason is the photo. Where LtROI explored how two kids can fall in love when one of them is a vampire (and the same gender to boot) LMI treats the "love" as a forgone conclusion and erases the gender thing completely. When I say forgone conclusion I mean the photo already showed that this has happened before, that yes, Abby has found a friend before (a friend so close that he was willing to spend his life to serve her. This is much more impressive than Hakan's suicide, a suicide, no matter how painful is a single act, what Thomas did was a lifetime. He literally did all that was humanly possible.) This process of falling in love hard is apparently not interesting enough to show, it just happened. Of course, the obvious implication is that it happened exactly as it is happening now, that what Abby and Owen have is not special, not something that is worth turning your back on the human race for, in fact it is highly common for Abby. Her reaction to Thomas's death is sadness, no question, but it pales in comparison to Thomas's feelings for her. There should have been a suicidal attempt at rescue, Abby could have grown wings and hauled Thomas out of there, if only for a chance for him to die in her arms. Something to show that the feelings were reciprocal. Instead what we're left with is the impression that Abby has fallen out of love long ago and the death was just a formality. This is fine, but the thing is she still accepted Thomas's services long after Abby has made peace with the fact that she doesn't love him like he loves her anymore. The apparent willingness of Abby to use Thomas after falling out of love with him already makes Abby totally evil to me, so I really don't see why Reeve's just couldn't tell Chloe to play Abby as a happy sociopath.

So in a way, Abby's interactions with both Thomas and Owen sort of already demand that Abby be evil, but Chloe gave a more nuanced performance than that. She played Abby was guilt-ridden and sorrowful at times, the thing is neither the plot, nor the other characters acknowledge this. (This issue didn't come up in LtROI because well, there's no Hakan backstory) So what you're left with is the CGI effects making a very Jekyll and Hyde distinction between vampire and human Abby, the actions of human Abby towards Thomas pointing to a Abby being a sociopath who just happens to fake emotions really well, Owen being completely overwhelmed by vampire Abby, and lastly Chloe playing Abby as a sorrowful girl. There's a point where layered, complex characters turn into inconsistent characterizations and muddled themes, and I think LMI wound up on the wrong side.

Eh, sorry to derail the topic more, but I really don't feel like deleting this post after I spent all that time typing it out.

[crazychristina]

I watched most of this review, and I"m convinced that the reviewer is trying to resolve his own conflict about what the story is about by providing a 'neat' interpretation. Very few people are comfortable with ambiguity. It's quite sad really, because before his brain kicked in demanding answers he actually responded to the story (and both film adaptations of it) in quite a sensitive way.

I have to say this interview shows why there was an American remake. This guy responded very strongly to American 80's culture, as depicted in LMI. He highlighted that having to read subtitles in a very understated and nuanced story is much more problematic than it would be in, say, an action/adventure movie. All this is true.

[DavidZahir]

You see, I did see Owen falling in love, and while I'm all for nuance I've never been in love without feeling some awe. Nor does it cheapen things to me that Abby was capable of making a friend. Rather that highlighted her tragedy, that this really was a very nice child possessed by a bloodthirsty monster. In a way, Owen was agreeing to join her in this purgatory of her existence--two ultimately kind and nice children tortured by life who'd found each other. This is most certainly a different dynamic than LTROI, because frankly Oscar is a little bit of a nascent monster himself. Eli is both monster and child, as is Oscar in a way. Together, Eli is more human and Oscar more monstrous, both horrible and beautiful. Something similar but not quite the same happens in LMI, something perhaps a bit more tragic but in a way more heartwarming (to me). Mostly because I actually like Owen and Abby a little bit more than Oscar and Eli, just personally.

Which may involve that fact the former couple are Americans like myself. In a thousand little ways they communicate and behave in ways more similar to myself and the cultural milieu I call home. For example, while I loved the LTROI the simple fact is the words spoken by the actors sounded like gibberish to me. While of course I know Swedish is a real language, that it contains its own ebb and flow and structure and underlying patterns, on a visceral level it doesn't sound like a language to me because on a gut level language is English or one of the Romance languages (because I studied French in high school). Doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy the film and appreciate the dialogue--LTROI remains one of my favorite films--but the language could not help but alienate me somewhat. Likewise, the clothes looked a little 'off' and I just didn't recognize the music played. Even the architecture (which contributed to its eerie beauty) also seemed alien. Just a tiny bit off-putting, just enough to become tarnish my full enjoyment simply because lots of stuff I didn't "get" down to my bones.

LMI on the other hand overflows with tiny details I totally get. Never even having heard of Now-N-Later candies, I felt I knew what they were instantly. Recognizing the music, the video game, remembering Reagan's speech, etc. All this helped me connect to the film as a whole, and how could it not aid Americans in general?

[ColBlair]

This is exactly where I think LtROI did a better job than LMI. Eli was a child, sweet and innocent, and also a murderous monster, the two aspects are not Jekyll and Hyde, but the same person, (IMO) Oskar meets both, and falls in love with the child-falls deeply enough to leave with the monster.

IMO, that's how I viewed Abby as well. I also think the book played the whole "out of control" hunger better, which is why I felt LMI was trying to do as well. Even though it was a "ghost" than a "demon."

I don't see this complexity in LMI. Oh sure, the scenes were all there, the characters went through the same motions, but the underlying theme in LMI seemed not to be so much that even flawed and damaged people can be capable of giving and receiving love, but more about the omnipresence of darkness within ourselves and the various things we use to keep that darkness at bay and what happens when we fail.

I didn't see that when I seen the movie. that's just my opinion there.

I don't know if this is entirely fair, but I think that LMI crossed a line depicting how horrible Owen's life was. He wasn't so much running away with Abby as he was running away from everything else. More so than LtROI, LMI showed Owen with nothing except for Abby. His misery really cheapened the emotional impact of his choice to go with Abby, it was a choice between something and nothing. In LtROI, we see Oskar choosing Eli, because he loves her enough to sacrifice everything else. Owen has nothing to sacrifice, he's dooming himself to a horrible future because he has nothing in the present.

I don't know about that. I thought Owen had something to sacifice, he either would live with his mother in misery or be with Abby and be happy, even if there are dark obstacles that will come their way.

If Reeves's intention was to illustrate this point, to turn the story into a tale of Owen's downfall, I think it would work better if Abby was evil. And what I meant when I said that everyone other actor played their roles as if Abby was evil is that Kodi, I think, didn't play a boy falling in love, he played Owen as falling in awe. There's a little change between LMI and LtROI which I think is important: When he was whipped by the bullies, Owen was threatened into telling a lie, whereas Oskar made up the lie himself. Owen's defining trait is submissiveness, he does what he's told. And it's not hard to draw similarities between the bullies and Abby and how they treat Owen.

I would agree if that's what Reeves was doing, that Abby was evil, it didn't work. he also mentioned in the commentary this, "Why does it have to be black and white? Why can't it be grey?", as he talked about he felt that Abby wasn't manipulative. I do feel that in Owen's world, he is force to do something that he doesn't want to do. Abby though became his salvation. To me, when the mother is praying, the last line is, "protect us from evil." To me the evil isn't Abby at all, for she is bullied by her vampirism, (Even Chloe mentioned that too in a interview.) it's the bullies. They are the ones who are hurting Owen, and at one point, they wanted to throw him in the ice. The other point though is when they were trying to kill him, but it was too late for Kenny to stop it cause he had already paid the price when he decided to be the bully.

Again I don't think LMI works as a love story, (even if people say you can see it both ways). The reason is the photo. Where LtROI explored how two kids can fall in love when one of them is a vampire (and the same gender to boot) LMI treats the "love" as a forgone conclusion and erases the gender thing completely. When I say forgone conclusion I mean the photo already showed that this has happened before, that yes, Abby has found a friend before (a friend so close that he was willing to spend his life to serve her. This is much more impressive than Hakan's suicide, a suicide, no matter how painful is a single act, what Thomas did was a lifetime. He literally did all that was humanly possible.) This process of falling in love hard is apparently not interesting enough to show, it just happened. Of course, the obvious implication is that it happened exactly as it is happening now, that what Abby and Owen have is not special, not something that is worth turning your back on the human race for, in fact it is highly common for Abby. Her reaction to Thomas's death is sadness, no question, but it pales in comparison to Thomas's feelings for her. There should have been a suicidal attempt at rescue, Abby could have grown wings and hauled Thomas out of there, if only for a chance for him to die in her arms. Something to show that the feelings were reciprocal. Instead what we're left with is the impression that Abby has fallen out of love long ago and the death was just a formality. This is fine, but the thing is she still accepted Thomas's services long after Abby has made peace with the fact that she doesn't love him like he loves her anymore. The apparent willingness of Abby to use Thomas after falling out of love with him already makes Abby totally evil to me, so I really don't see why Reeve's just couldn't tell Chloe to play Abby as a happy sociopath.

I think the book of LTROI explored the love between two children better in my opinion. There was a lot of things going on and there was lot of playfulness which the LTROI movie to me lacked, except maybe one or two scenes. There is a deleted scene where Oskar and Eli are playing Bulleri Bulleri Bock for the first time.

So in a way, Abby's interactions with both Thomas and Owen sort of already demand that Abby be evil, but Chloe gave a more nuanced performance than that. She played Abby was guilt-ridden and sorrowful at times, the thing is neither the plot, nor the other characters acknowledge this. (This issue didn't come up in LtROI because well, there's no Hakan backstory) So what you're left with is the CGI effects making a very Jekyll and Hyde distinction between vampire and human Abby, the actions of human Abby towards Thomas pointing to a Abby being a sociopath who just happens to fake emotions really well, Owen being completely overwhelmed by vampire Abby, and lastly Chloe playing Abby as a sorrowful girl. There's a point where layered, complex characters turn into inconsistent characterizations and muddled themes, and I think LMI wound up on the wrong side.

Hmmmm......I will say this though, when I first seen the movie, I figured Abby was evil and abusive. Once the movie progressed, Abby was a kind soul to Thomas. I do agree with you that i was a bit confused when Abby turned into a vampire in front of Owen though cause when she left, I thought she climbed up the tree cause she was upset and then I seen that she attacked Virginia and I figured that she was just enjoying the killing. It did leave me baffled for a while until Owen confronted Abby and I realized that she doesn't have a choice. i think her vampirism though is equal to rage against humanity. there could be a meaning when she killed the jogger and Virginia I believe, probably part of the 7 deadly sins in which one of them was vanity which I believe Virginia is part of that sin.

Eh, sorry to derail the topic more, but I really don't feel like deleting this post after I spent all that time typing it out.

It's cool man. You made an opinion that you stood by. I can't wait to hear what else you have to say.

[ColBlair]

I watched most of this review, and I"m convinced that the reviewer is trying to resolve his own conflict about what the story is about by providing a 'neat' interpretation. Very few people are comfortable with ambiguity. It's quite sad really, because before his brain kicked in demanding answers he actually responded to the story (and both film adaptations of it) in quite a sensitive way.

I have to say this interview shows why there was an American remake. This guy responded very strongly to American 80's culture, as depicted in LMI. He highlighted that having to read subtitles in a very understated and nuanced story is much more problematic than it would be in, say, an action/adventure movie. All this is true.

I don't mind ambiguity, heck, to me I look at LMI like the movie Total Recall. In TR, Quaid was either in a dream or the stuff was really happening. In LMI, you could say that Owen may or may not be Abby's caretaker. i do agree that the interview does show why there was a remake, even one of my friends that I knew in college understood why the movie was remade.