Wednesday 22 April 2009

Knowing, Duplicity and Let the Right One In

Two big Hollywood films outshone by a subtitled Swedish minnow. Apparently Knowing was number one in the American Box Office. It was just about OK as a sci-fi disaster movie. Nicholas Cage played Nicholas Cage. It was nice to see Rose Byrne from my favourite US TV show Damages on the big screen. But that said, it was best to leave your brain at home. Or alternatively, stay away.

Duplicity had it's moments. A smart premise and a sharp script let down by the inevitable soggy ending. Again, Clive Owen played Clive Owen and Julia Roberts was, well, Julia Roberts. When Tom Wilkinson just turns up for the money, there is something wrong. But it was good to look at.

Now Let the Right One In is a totally different proposition. If you wrap up all the vampire movies ever made into a single bunch, then this one is so different it does not come close. Set in a snowy Swedish suburb, it is so slow at the beginning and I started to wonder what all the fuss was about, and there certainly had been a positive fuss by all the critics. But gradually the relationship between two twelve year old outsiders unfolds. The boy is bullied at school and the girl, well, she has been twelve for an awfully long time. Emotionally involving and ultimately devastating, young love does not run smooth. Tomas Alfredson has created a little classic.

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