Twelve year old Oskar is an outsider; struggling to fit in at school and left alone to fend for himself at home while his mother works nights. One evening he meets the mysterious Eli. As a sweet romance blossoms between them, Oskar learns to overcome his tormentors and discovers Eli's dark secret and the connections to the gruesome events occurring across town. Together they must help Eli leave and live, or stay and die. Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.