Ah, but Abby isn’t human now is she? She’s a vampire.
That point keeps being made in this thread, but I don’t think it’s as relevant a point as those making it believe.
Vampires may not be human, but in almost all mythologies (and I see nothing in this story that would be different) they are converted humans, and they masquerade as humans - it’s how they make their living* isn’t it? Gender identity is not material to Abby’s thoughts and interests, but it’s certainly important to the various relationships she** has with humans, the most important of which is her relationship with Owen.
I think Baal Houtham made some interesting points in that regard. I agree with Equipoise that gender is made ambiguous in the US movie, and that the point isn’t as important in this particular telling as it was in the Swedish movie. But because the earlier movie and the novel portray the character as a castrated boy, then at best the “I’m not a girl because I’m an inhuman monster” interpretation of the US movie is an allowed interpretation but not an inevitable one.
*[sub]Or undeadness, I suppose.[/sub]
**[sub]“She” in the sense of her outward mask of humanity.[/sub]
Saw the US version last weekend. Have not seen the Swedish version or read the book. Abby’s references in the movie that she was not a girl, did not lend me to assume that she was a boy, but that she was not human.
I agree with everything else you say, but I do think that for those who haven’t read the book or seen the Swedish movie it is an inevitable interpretation. In fact, it’s what I thought the first time I saw the Swedish version, that by saying he wasn’t a girl, Eli meant he was an unhuman creature, not a boy or girl. I didn’t know what I was seeing when I saw the castration scar scene because it’s very quick and dark. I didn’t know that Eli meant he was REALLY a boy until I read a thread here at the Dope after seeing the movie. It’s totally understandable that others not familiar with the story would be the same way about the remake (edit to add, like Wilbo 523). I get that.
The only thing that puzzles me is why some people, after being told what those lines meant, persist in saying it can’t be true. It is, and it’s an interesting aspect of Abby. Move on and talk about that aspect, like Baal Houtham has. I don’t remember anyone arguing the point about the Swedish movie.
In any case, I’m just glad that people are talking about the movie no matter what they’re talking about.
Obviously the interpretation is a lot more evitable than I thought! It does seem to be the intention of the LMI film makers for that (“I’m not human”) to be the implication of Abby’s comments about gender.
In the original book the “girl” more or less whores herself out to her “father” in exchange for blood. So even though she can’t have actual sex, she’s no stranger to sexual behavior.
I don’t think it was the filmmakers’ intention, but I think they probably knew many would come to that conclusion, and it’s fine either way. It works either way.
It’s like a songwriter writes a song and a listener who only absorbs snatches of lyrics may think the song is about one thing, and that interpretation works fine for them. Then they might delve deeper and find out the song is about something completely different, and that gives the song a different aspect. They may like their interpretation better and want to stick with it, and that’s fine. Most wouldn’t however, argue that the songwriter meant what the listener hears instead of what the songwriter meant.
[off topic]I came across this once. There’s a song I love that’s really snarky about how we go looking for extraterrestrial life and how some people hope that the aliens will come to earth and help save mankind from ourselves, make everything better for us with their technology and peaceful ways. It’s snarky because the point of the song is, bullshit, why should aliens help us, when we fuck each other over and often act Alpha toward lesser beings and animals (there’s a line “We have the weapons to intimidate you if you look afright, come on down and see our zoos and refugee camps, ain’t it worth your time?”), in essence, 1) we don’t deserve help from space if we can’t clean up our own mess and 2) help isn’t going to come from space so we should be good and decent people because that’s its own reward. There’s more, but that’s the gist.
So there was a fan who insisted, absolutely insisted, that the song was a cry for help, WANTING aliens to come to earth to help us clean up our messes, which he thought was a cop out, that we should clean out our own messes instead of wanting aliens to do it for us. He was arguing exactly what the song was saying but he couldn’t see that. The argument went on for weeks on a music mailing list, everyone trying to tell him that he was wrong. Even when the artist herself unnecessarily clarified the meaning, he insisted his POV was correct and she was backtracking. Unbelievable. To this day I don’t know what his problem was. He was a great guy otherwise, but his mind was set in concrete on this particular issue. So, I know the beginnings of it when I see it. [/off topic]
Mrs. Urquhart and I saw Let Me In last night (we’re going on vacation tomorrow and I wanted to see it in the theater before it got pulled, which I think will happen quite soon).
I’m a huge fan of Let the Right One In – it was one of my favorite movies of that year, and I was one of the many people who wondered what the purpose of remaking the movie was. In the meantime, I read the book Let Me In; it’s a great book, but it’s not a very pleasant one to read (as others in this thread have noted, the book version of Eli had some horrific things happen to her before and after she was turned into a vampire).
Anyway, I was really pleased with the American remake – I’d heard good things about it (here and elsewhere), and those reviews compelled me to go see it. I particularly liked some of the additions (the car crash was exceptionally well constructed), and I thought the scene in the hospital in which the young woman who’d been bitten by Abby was very well done – while the investigating police officer is conversing with the woman’s husband/boyfriend in the hallway, the woman is sucking her own blood (visibly, in the background).
It struck me this morning how much happened in the background of the movie – in addition to the burning bed scene in the hospital, there was Abby’s scaling of the hospital wall when she discovers the location of the “father” (the camera gradually drew the viewer’s attention to it, but it was visible the whole time the nurse was outside), and the remake, thankfully, kept the pool scene intact (indeed, it could have been pulled from the original movie) – the reason that scene was so incredibly effective is because, while the camera is focused on Oskar/Owen, there’s all kinds of carnage happening out of focus and off-screen). The sound of leathery wings flapping was awfully cool, too.
I’m glad the remake (and I do think that this is a remake of the film rather than a reinterpretation of the book) left out the cat attack from the original movie (and the book) – that didn’t work too well in either case.
It’s too bad (but not at all surprising) that it’s not doing very well at the box office. The author of the original book is a fan (as is Stephen King, but that’s not saying much).
:bumping this:
OPEN SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT
I just saw it on a pre-release DVD(it hits stores in 2 weeks or so).
Wow, what a good movie.
I had no sense that Abby was a boy. Did I miss something that clearly indicated that? I just figured she was a vampire, which is why she says she is “nothing”. I didn’t see any kind of scar or reaction in the boy’s face when she changed.
It’s actually kind of crazy. She basically lost the boy she used to know(the one who was her "Father) and it looks like she is making Owen her new life-long mate. I mean, it’s like she was looking for a familiar.
In a way, Abby is almost a villain. Except we see that she/he is a victim of vampirism and we sympathize with him/her.
Loved it. Was surprised the bullies actually get killed, though. I didn’t think they would actually do that.
You have the DVD already!? Lucky.
Let Me In is my favorite movie of 2010. Eli was the character of the vampire in the book and the Swedish movie. Eli was a boy. For the Hammer version, Eli was changed to Abby and was made a girl.
I can’t wait for Feb. 1 to get the DVD.
I just saw this on DVD. It was definitely pretty awesome. Abby and Owen were really good together and I love that “The Father” turned out to be her old friend and she’s making Owen into her new friend. Although I had a bit of a hard time dealing with how over-the-top the bullies were.
And while I can’t find a direct quote from Matt Reeves, there seems to be a pretty clear “Abby was a girl” everywhere on the Internet. I’ve never seen the original, but I have to agree. There’s nothing androgynous about Abby, she acts (and looks) like a girl.
The original (Let the Right One In) is now on instant streaming on Netflix, if anyone’s interested.
I didn’t care for this film. It’s done nearly shot for shot the same as the original. Sure, it was well made, arguably just as well done as the original. And yet, I just don’t feel like there is any reason for this film to exist. I see this film as a mere curiosity, to be seen once and never again. When I want to return to this fantastic story, I’m going to put on the original.
I tried watching the Swedish version. I just didn;t like it. Don;t say its because I had to read the screen. Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies.
I think its that I don;t like the way the Swedish one is filmed. It just seems so clinical and cold.
Bumping this thread because I just saw this tonight in Afghanistan… somebody had gotten ahold of a digital copy and it was the first thing I watched after I got done copying stuff. So glad I did! I saw *Let The Right One In *on Netflix before I left, and really enjoyed it; this one was equally amazing. It’d be difficult for me to say that one is better than the other, because this one seemed like an almost shot-for-shot remake of the original, but this one felt more visceral to me somehow. I think I agree with **The Man In Black **that the original was kind of cold by comparison.
Now, let’s see if I can explain my thinking on this other issue… having just seen it tonight, I can say that Abby is 100% portrayed as a girl within the context of this movie. Having said that, I think the wording of her question outside the arcade (“Would you still like me… even if I wasn’t a girl?”) makes more sense if her character was originally a boy. I can accept that concept.
Here’s the deal, though. *Very *few people, in my opinion, would even guess that she was a boy unless they got the idea somewhere else. I never had that thought after watching both film versions (even with the shot of Eli’s genital area in the original… it’s a poorly lit shot and only a half-second long at most, I think). When Abby says, “I’m not a girl,” 99% of the people who see this movie will think, “Well, of course she isn’t; she’s a vampire!” The people who have read the book can smile to themselves knowing the “truth,” but it’s not really in the movie.