Rating: 15/20
Plot: I don't have time for this.
From Ali Abbasi, the writer-director who did not have anything at all with Let the Right One In despite what I thought until about five minutes ago when I looked it up, this is a slow-burn of a warped fairy tale. The director does a great job of creating this world that is very much the one we all inhabit but with all these shades and colorings that convince you it's not quite that world. Abbasi throws us in without much exposition, and it's up to the viewer to figure out the rules of it all.
That's appropriate since I think I've determined that "rules" is a lot of what this movie is about. I'd get into that a bit more, but I really don't have time for this.
The leads are covered in make-up and prosthetics, and it's so well done that I really couldn't tell if there was movie magic going on or if the creators just found a couple of people who really looked like this. Eva Melander also added some weight for this, and she's really good here with her facial twitches and these expressions of discovery. And the guy, played by Eero Milonoff, has this quiet menace that really works, even when you start to connect to the character around the same time Melander's character does.
Between them, there's a squirm-inducing sex scene that I'm really glad I got to watch in a theater with some elderly people, but there are also tons of moments with real warmth and beauty. I'm not sure all the story's twists really work, but the connections and the idea of being between two worlds or groups is real.
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