Bizarre

Let Me In, the American remake of the Swedish film, Let the Right One In, is bizarre in its fidelity to the Swedish film. To the point that I'm perplexed that it was remade. (A part of me is not perplexed: I understand that there are movie-goers who can't wrap their heads around subtitles, but I just don't get such people).

The differences are slight: ( Minor spoilers )

I expect it'll be interesting to compare the Swedish and American versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But I can't say that that's a film that needs to be remade, either.

I've always really liked comparing different versions of films. I've recently been watching the 1946 and 1984 versions of The Razor's Edge. I hadn't actually seen the 1984 version since it first came out, and I was surprised that it was much better than I remembered it. While I think that the 1946 version of Elliot Templeton is a much more fun character, in general, I find the 1946 version depends too heavily on people telling you what they're feeling.

I think this goes back to my days in theatre. Theatre is an interpretive art: it's (usually) all about interpreting an existing text. What choices do the actors and director make? Is your Lady Macbeth the cruelly ambitious "woman behind the man"-type, as Jeanette Nolan interprets her? Or the emotionally immature and greedy Lady Macbeth of Francesca Annis? Increasingly, film is like that, and I really enjoy seeing how people make different choices in film. How is the new Spider-Man going to be different than the last Spider-Man? How is the upcoming remake of The Great Gatsby going to be different from the Robert Redford version? Or the 2000 television film with Mira Sorvino?

I think I'd suggest that, if the choices aren't different in different theatre productions, then your production is kind of pointless. And, sadly, I think that Let Me In, despite being a really good, solid film, is kinda pointless in a world where we already have Let the Right One In.