Vampires? Check. Stellar reviews? Check. Cool foreign cache? Check. Snowbound winter setting in a suburb of Stockholm? Check. A movie that has all the ingredients I typically look for in a film and one that I couldn't wait to get via Netflix. And it's a good movie, one that I'd recommend watching, but it wasn't great, and it wasn't scary -- which I guess was my biggest complaint -- so in the end, I guess it was a little disappointing. The movie is actually a simple story, told without many effects, and featuring the kind of sweeping atmospherics that I usually love in a horror film. Unfortunately, the horror is missing, because the suspense is missing, and the vampire's victims are mostly unknown characters.
The story opens on a 12-year-old boy named Oskar, who's watching the world from his bedroom window and notices a new tenant moving into his apartment complex, an older man with a young girl. Oskar is the focus of most of the movie and he hasn't led a particularly enjoyable life. He gets bullied at school, his parents are divorced, and in a jarring scene near the end that is neither explained nor foreshadowed, his father has issues of his own. But Oskar befriends the girl who becomes his neighbor and becomes quite smitten with her, in a way that doesn't necessarily feel believable (isn't 12 a little young to "fall in love"?) but is played rather convincingly by the two young lead actors (Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson).
His new friend, Eli, is... and I think I'm not spoiling by revealing this, because the movie makes no attempt to hide this at all... a vampire. Her "father" spends some time at the beginning of the film killing a young man in the frosty woods to drain his blood, but then gets scared off by two women walking their dog and can't finish the job. He's actually really bad at his "job," and his story and why he is attached to Eli is probably the most interesting part of the movie (he's not her father, and the ending of the film hints at what his role has been), but he's not really on screen too much, and the entire "serial killer on the loose in town" angle that leads to all the supposed suspense of the picture didn't really do anything to scare me, because (a) I know who's doing the killing, and why, and (b) the film follows mostly Oskar, Eli, and the man helping her, not the potential victims, so there's really no suspense. There are a group of pub residents who get at least passing moments on camera that figure into a coolly gruesome climax, but in the end, when the viewer is rooting for the vampire, it's hard to craft much "horror" there. So that's where the film failed for me, I guess.
On the other hand, as simply a love story (pre-teen though it is) between two societal outcasts, told with a sensitivity and grace and supported by strong acting, this is a pretty good film. The setting helps, and anything with subtitles usually works for me -- and is usually better made than what passes for entertainment in this country. Plus, the characterization of Eli -- a "good" vampire, but one that needs to feed on humans to survive -- is very well done. Her gaunt appearance during periods of starvation is striking and helps to drive up the viewer's sympathy (along with Oskar's feelings). And the ending is great. There are a few false starts that you think are the ending, but the actual climactic ending will shock and surprise and delight you. It does conclude rather perfectly and turns the entire movie into a decent success.
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