A FACE AT THE WINDOW

Let the Right One In is an unsettling Swedish-language horror film set in Stockholm, where 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) always struggles for warmth during an interminable winter. Bullies mistreat him at school, his parents ignore him, and he has no friends. He consoles himself with revenge fantasies, imagining violent deaths for his villainous adversaries. When new neighbors move into his apartment block, Oskar befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson), a raven-haired girl who seems to be Oskar’s age, only appears at night and seems impervious to the cold. Clearly, there is something strange about Eli. Oskar soon learns that she is a child vampire, living with serial killer Hakan (Per Ragnar), who is responsible for draining his victims’ blood so Eli can feed.

Oskar and Eli are birds of a feather, in that both are outsiders, young, alone, and left to their own devices in a harsh climate and an even colder world. Theirs is almost a love story of codependence and need, and it is that gentle quality that makes this film most unnerving. They commit heinous acts almost casually, and it is a great credit to director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist that their actions feel justified as desperate measures by children with no other options. If anything, there is an adult-like pragmatism in everything Oskar and Eli do. When Hakan botches a murder, Eli has to step in and finish the job to put the victim humanely out of his or her suffering.

Lesser filmmakers would turn this into a lurid freak show, but Alfredson and Lindqvist focus on the characters’ situations and motivations rather than the gory nature of their actions. The film is so flawlessly constructed that even the horror has a surreal beauty about it, as if suspended in a delicate snow globe. A swimming pool confrontation is the most masterful moment of understated terror in recent memory. One word of caution to parents: don’t mistake this as a children’s movie simply because the two leads are kids. This is an adult horror movie with moments of intense violence and seriously squirmy undercurrents of child exploitation, pedophilia, and neglect. It doesn’t follow Hollywood’s rules for horror movies, but this film gets under your skin. (****) J.L.

Director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a Mumbai youth revisiting his past while competing for $20 million rupees on India’s Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? It is a gritty story of love lost and found, framed through the memories of a romantic, likable orphan played winningly by novice British actor Dev Patel. Based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup, the film employs a story-within-a-story structure, opening with young contestant Jamal (Patel) being brutally questioned by local police, who believe his successful run on the hit show to be a fraud. Indeed, his winning answers exceed those given by doctors and lawyers. Flashing back in time, the twisty narrative fills in the blanks, with each chapter of his young life supplying answers.

His is a life spent on the streets that includes child exploitation, abuse and cruelty at the hands of petty criminals. A “slumdog” by circumstance and growing up amidst burnt-out, trash-strewn streets in rural India, orphaned Jamal runs with a band of fellow hardscrabble kids. These include an older brother who will eventually fall into a life of crime and young Latika (ravishing Freida Pinto), whom he loves instantly. The film doesn’t look away from the harrowing exploitation of homeless children. Jamal escapes and goes on to create a somewhat ordinary life, never forgetting Latika and continuing, through the years, to pursue her with a single-minded passion that destiny will bring them together - via a game show on national television.

There is also an effective turn by Bollywood star Anil Kapoor as the suspicious, wealthy host of the program, himself a former slumdog who made good and may or may not be on Jamal’s side. Boyle displays a hypnotic, confident grip on the dual narratives, employing cinematography that bursts with color even in the grimmest of places, music that throbs with energy and a carefully calibrated love story that builds to a lovely emotional catharsis. Slumdog Millionaire is a magical poem to the power of transcendent love, and Patel’s openhearted turn and liquid brown eyes hold the screen like few leading men this year. (***1/2) C.S.

Quantum of Solace begins where 2006’s Casino Royale left off. The opening has British Secret Service agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) narrowly escaping some baddies in a thrilling car chase along a winding road in the Italian Lakes district. He arrives in Siena, during the famous Palio horse race, to help with the interrogation of a man directly involved with the death of Bond’s Casino love interest, Vesper Lynd. The man tells of a shadow organization, run by billionaire Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), which is buying huge tracts of high desert in Chile, with the help of a Bolivian general. Out for revenge, Bond stalks Greene, aided by Greene’s lover Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who pursues her own vendetta against the general.

The first in the Bond series to reference its immediate predecessor, this film is one of the most action-packed Bond adventures ever, as well as the shortest. The 105-minute running time is the film’s main shortcoming, allowing the action sequences and plot to dominate. Camille’s obsessive mission and Bond’s grief over Vesper’s murder get only brief lip service before being quieted by revving motors, smashing glass, a barrage of gunfire, and the crunch of a fist colliding with a cheekbone. Director Marc Forster really knows how to stage action, even if editors Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson engage in a kind of Attention Deficit Disorder-cutting that could have used a major dose of Ritalin.

Craig is quickly making a claim as the best Bond of all time. While he is not an exact match for Ian Fleming’s description of 007 from the novels, he has the character’s brooding intensity and a lithe panther grace. No question about it - Craig is the most physical of all the Bonds, his agility and muscularity informing the series’ action sequences. Kurylenko has feistiness uncommon to most Bond girls, while Gemma Arterton plays the requisite doomed sex object, amusingly named Strawberry Fields. Judi Dench has a more central role as Secret Service head M, but her expanded duties accentuate the convoluted and rushed storyline. Still, Craig and the film’s low-tech action approach still beats any of the Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan Bond adventures. (***) J.L.