This gory tour de force will really suck you in
Thoughtful, tense and gory take on Scandi noir classic is a nightmarish tour de force
Let The Right One In Abbey Theatre Until January 6
Boy meets girl-nextdoor stories don’t usually involve ritual murder, blood-sucking, sadistic bullying, a disturbingly realistic attempt at drowning, a novel use of sulfuric acid and enough shocks to keep everyone awake. This National Theatre of Scotland dramatisation of a Swedish novel and film is not for the squeamish.
It doesn’t take long to recognise the larger implications of all the gore, involving nervous Oskar (Craig Connolly), bullied at school, receiving no help from his teachers, little from his mother and none from his absent father. This could be any child anywhere, desperate to defend himself, incapable of doing it but fantasising about how he might have revenge.
And Eli, the new girl-next-door is the emotional opposite. She has a waif-like innocence and a total lack of pretension and social awareness. She’s also a vampire, although she doesn’t use the word, who can handle villains.
She smells like a wet dog and gets sick if she eats ordinary food. Her home situation is unclear. The man she calls her father (Nick Dunning) obviously wants to keep her in her present state, and tries to dominate her emotionally. Kate Honan has the appearance, the air of mystery and the unemotional delivery that can even bring occasional touches of humour to the role.
Oskar and Eli gradually recognise each other as outsiders who need and can help each other. Their coming of age attempts at sexual involvement have a charming innocent naivety, although Eli gives the impression of being agelessly old and eternally young. In a programme note, the director John Tiffany sees her as a Peter Pan figure.
The setting is a Swedish forest of tall silver birch trees in snowy surroundings, where murders are being committed: the kind of creepy area you associate with folk-tale villainy. But this is not some era in the dark past, it’s Sweden in the 1980s. The eerie forest and ordinary life are deliberately shown very close to each other. And the final message appears to be that there are no
‘The director keeps the shock factor at a level that’s almost an assault on the senses’
ultimate answers to life’s problems. All solutions are temporary.
Apart from the fascinating performances by the two innocents, this is very much a tour de force by the director who keeps the shock factor at a level that’s almost an assault on the senses, without ever losing sight of the human element. And he’s very well served by the sound design, and by special effects man Jeremy Chernwick.