General release Fri 5 Nov
Matt Reeves, USA, 115 min
Noam Chomsky once gave a lecture on American foreign policy in which he attacked a recurring doctrine he called ‘Change of Course’; this is when Presidents acknowledge their country’s imperialist sins of the past in an effort to legitimate the imperialist ambitions of the present, to fool the masses into thinking it will be different this time. Obama is of course the latest proponent of this, and the same year he was elected saw the release of Thomas Alfredson’s hit film version of John Ajvide Lindgyist’s 2004 novel Let the Right One In. It was a critically lauded examination of how violence is passed down through the generations, detailing how the old and wicked assimilate the sympathies of the young and innocent. It was also a critical smash, which instantly means an American remake is on the cards. Enter Cloverfield director Matt Reeves, who’s crafted a respectful adaptation that more or less matches the original’s enthralling mix of dread, tenderness and OTT violence.
If you missed the Swedish film, the story follows sombre sprog Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who, suffering a parental divorce and severe school bullying, is befriended by new-girl-on-the-block Abby (Chloe Moretz), who isn’t quite what she seems. She may offer Owen a way out of his misery, but with particularly pale corpses turning up in the area, it may come at quite a price.
Cinematically, Reeves is an assured director, here using shallow-focus to create a chokingly claustrophobic atmosphere that rarely lets up, drawing out rich performances from the young leads. But what impresses most is that the rising director has grasped the underlying sweep of the story’s themes, and delivers more than a slavish, superficial Americanisation; set in 1983, we see Reagan pop up on TV near the start acknowledging the US’s history of violence, the very year he would use these as a smoke-shield to commit similar atrocities in Latin America. Okay, so this bold resonance is somewhat at odds with the film’s very existence; the insensitivity towards other countries that Reeves is sinking his teeth into is ironically the audience a near-instant remake like this is aimed at. But if you did happen to miss the original, you could do worse than to accept this substitute.