Let the Right One In

Oskar and his classmates suffer through a militant gym class taught by Mr. Ávila, a former war pilot from Spain who receives respect and fear from his students. Jonny and the others haven’t bullied Oskar since injuring him with the branch, but he knows his luck won’t last. He thinks about Eli and where she might be. Though usually unable to do gymnastics, Oskar finds the strength to perform well on the pommel horse, garnering Mr. Ávila’s respect. As Oskar heads to Mr. Ávila’s office, Jonny and the others suddenly throw a noose around him, but he takes the rope and throws it at them, then runs away. In Mr. Ávila’s office, he asks if he can join evening strength training sessions, to which Mr. Ávila agrees. When he goes to change, Oskar finds that Jonny and the others stole his pants. He must now walk home in his gym shorts.

Holmberg and Staffan watch a town drunk sleeping on a bench in the snow. The officers discuss Håkan’s mumbling, which they translate as “Eli.” Staffan explains that “Eli” means “God.”

After changing at home, Oskar buys a newspaper so that he can scrapbook articles about the killer’s capture. Johan arrives, telling Oskar where his pants are. They retrieve his pants, eat hot dogs, talk about Oskar’s bullies, and speculate on how people die on train tracks. When they part, Oskar determines to get stronger by strength training.

Virginia, Lacke, and the others drink at the Chinese restaurant. The guys have told Virginia everything Gösta revealed to them, and she suggests that it doesn’t make much sense without a body. Despite Karlsson believing that the police aren’t interested, Virginia thinks they should go to the police anyway if it will help. Lacke, who has been drinking heavily, falls, prompting the waiter to escort him out. Virginia walks him to her place.

Eli pretends to be waiting for her father and asks a random woman if she can use her phone. The woman invites her in, and after Eli squares off with a hissing cat (which she locks in the kitchen), Eli sizes the woman up. The woman is sick, and when Eli touches the woman, the woman slumps down and places her head in Eli’s lap. Eli talks about her past in a soothing tone, then bites the woman and drinks her blood. Eli stops drinking the woman’s blood, however, when she realizes that the woman has cancer. Moreover, the woman is on morphine. The morphine is in the woman’s blood, so it’s transferred to Eli. Eli quickly becomes incapacitated and loses her strength, meaning she can’t kill the woman properly so that the woman doesn’t wake up after death.

Lacke and Virginia walk to Virginia’s apartment. The cold air helps Lacke sober up, though he continues to be sad about Jocke’s disappearance. Virginia tries reasoning with him, but he’s inconsolable. Virginia is in love with Lacke, and she thinks back to earlier days. When her daughter moved out, Lacke moved in. He never really had money, and she was fine with it at first, but he never seemed to do anything job-wise. She eventually asked him to move out, but they still sleep together, and for the most part operate as a couple. When they pass the supermarket where Virginia works, Lacke warms up to her and they head home. Virginia cooks for him, and they have sex.

Eli is too weak to get up and suffers hallucinations mixed with possible memories from the morphine poisoning. Her visions include scenes of countless suffering children: “Hundreds of children’s lips that writhed painfully, whispering their story, Eli’s story” (162). Eli tries spitting the tainted blood out in an effort to regain her strength.

In the next scene, officers Staffan, Larsson, and Holmberg arrive at the sick woman’s house. There are footprints leading away from the house at puzzling distances that match that of a young child. More shocking to the officers is the account of the neighbor. The neighbor claims that the woman came out of the house through a window while on fire. The woman walked outside, on fire, without screaming or running, then finally just collapsed and died.

Later, Oskar goes to bed, saddened that he still hasn’t heard from Eli. He feels defenseless without her presence and leaves his window cracked in hopes of her coming over. He awakes from dreaming to the sound of his name and realizes Eli is outside his window. Eli instructs him to turn around—she’s naked—then asks if she can come in. He says yes, and she comes in and snuggles up next to him in bed. She mentions that her father is gone now, and Oskar plays games with her to brighten her mood. Oskar then asks if they can date, which startles Eli. She doesn’t know what dating means and grows suspicious, but Oskar assures her that it’s pretty much just carrying on as they have been. Eli warns him that she’s not a girl: “I’m nothing. Not a child. Not old. Not a boy. Not a girl. Nothing” (171). Though confused, Oskar says he accepts Eli for who she is and, after smelling gasoline on her, falls asleep.