by Gena Radcliffe, Staff Writer

My imaginary friend was named Wendy, and she was in my life for an embarrassingly long time. My real-life friendships were ephemeral; often it felt like it depended on the weather as to if I would be invited to hang out with them after school or during recess. Even then, I just sort of trailed along, mostly unacknowledged, but at least to outsiders it looked like I had friends.

Wendy was an amalgam of all my favorite book characters, Ramona Quimby meets Laura Ingalls Wilder meets the sister in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. In my mind, she had blonde pigtails, and was the kind of girl who did things I was too cowardly to do, like hang upside down from the jungle gym, or stand up on a swing. She was a troublemaker, but the fun kind, the kind teachers secretly liked. Most of all, she wanted to be my friend. She wasn’t coaxed into it because our mothers were friends, or because there wasn’t anyone else she could pair up with for square dancing classes. It was because she wanted to be. I wasn’t so wrapped up in the fantasy that I began to think that she was real (though we had plenty of lively conversations in my head), but if she just suddenly materialized out of nowhere one day, I wouldn’t have been in the least bit scared.

That’s how Eli (Lina Leandersson) appears to Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) in 2008’s Let the Right One In, just perched on top of playground equipment like she’s been there the whole time. She’s Oskar’s new neighbor, and he’s immediately taken with her, either not noticing or not caring that she’s not dressed for the bitterly cold weather, let alone that it doesn’t seem to bother her. He also never sees her in the daytime, but there are a lot of odd things about Eli that Oskar is willing to overlook, because she’s quietly, gently friendly towards him.

She overlooks things about him too, such as the fact that loneliness and need all but seep out of Oskar’s pores. Though he’s not even a teenager yet, Oskar already has the slumped shoulders and downcast eyes of someone who expects little more from the world than hurt and disappointment. Years of bullying has given him a taste for as-yet-unacted-upon revenge, which he works out by collecting newspaper clippings about local murders. Other kids think he’s a creep and a weirdo, but not Eli. Though she warns Oskar when they first meet that they can’t be friends, their shared aloneness in the world soon draws them together into a circle of two, so close that they begin communicating in code.

Though it eventually blossoms into a tentative, almost old-fashioned romance (Oskar even uses the phrase “go steady”), it’s the friendship that gives them what they need. Eli, who lives alone with her caretaker Hakan (Per Ragnar), has the companionship with another child that she’s lacked for so long. Oskar becomes more confident, though that confidence metastasizes into something dark and potentially uncontrollable, as when he violently fights back against a bully, splitting his ear with a metal bar. Eli isn’t frightened of this outburst, however – if anything, it was with her encouragement.

The audience knows long before Oskar does that Eli is a vampire. Though Hakan looks after her, he is most certainly not acting as a father figure, and the sinister undertones of their interactions with each other suggest that his finding victims and cleaning up after her kills come at a repugnant cost. Hakan is devoted to Eli, in his own awful way, but he’s gotten sloppy, leaving bodies where they can be easily found and forcing them to move from town to town. Eli’s existence is fragile: if she enters a room without permission blood begins to flow from her skin. A ray of sunlight can cause her to burst into flames. Beyond the secret horrors Hakan demands of her in exchange for his services, he is simply no longer reliable enough to keep her safe.

This leads us to a question that is never definitively answered: when Eli changes her stance on becoming friends with Oskar, is it because she sees something in him she likes, or something she needs? She can’t “retire” Hakan without a replacement, and Oskar fits the bill, with the benefit of youth on his side. Though Oskar is initially shocked that Eli could so coolly kill someone, she’s already seen his potential for violence (and how easily he’s manipulated into lashing out). Though she looks like a child, there’s no telling how old Eli actually is. It’s entirely possible that she’s been playing this game of Jim Henson’s Renfield Babies for a very long time, and knows what to look for in a potential protector, caretaker, and accomplice. 

Or, maybe she just needs a friend. 

In the end, it probably doesn’t matter much either way to Oskar, particularly after Eli saves his life by slaughtering his bullies. Now they share a secret together, and when you’re two profoundly lonely people there are few things more powerful. Their circle of two is sealed, and the last we see of them Oskar is comfortably settling into his new role, invigorated by the power of being wanted. Of being chosen, particularly by someone who is under no obligation to choose you for anything. Friends forever.