There’s been a ton of hype surrounding "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." For a while the book (by Stieg Larsson) by the same name was pretty much everywhere, and the film, released hot on its heels, has also generated a lot of excitement.
That surprised me a little. It’s pretty rare to go to Blockbuster in search of a foreign film (made in Sweden), with subtitles, and find that all 20 copies are rented.
That just doesn’t happen, and it speaks to the popularity of the three-part book series and the films.
After watching the movie last night (I haven’t read the book) I’m still a little surprised. Don’t get me wrong, the film was awesome, but it didn’t have any major stars, was entirely shot in Sweden, in Swedish.
What it did have was a gripping, thrilling storyline that scared the heck out of me, solid unpretentious acting, and a simple, gritty narrative that relies on the story rather than CGI or Hollywood clichés to make a mark.
The story focuses on Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a once-respected journalist who has been convicted of libel, and has six months to kill before serving his sentence.
He is approached by a wealthy businessman named Henrik Vanger, and asked to spend that time turning his investigative skills to the unsolved disappearance of his niece, who went missing 40 years ago.
Along the way Blomkvist enlists the help of the beautiful, but darkly troubled Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a tattoo’d and pierced hacker who was initially hired to investigate Blomkvist’s background, before Vanger brought him on.
Her illicit skills, paired with Blomkvist’s investigative skills, allow the team to turn up new clues in the mysterious investigation set mostly on the Vanger’s creepy island estate.
Rapace and Nyqvist are both pitch perfect in their roles, very different people united by their connection to the girl’s disappearance and their commitment to seeing the investigation through – and their ability to draw the characters into their lives.
Great writing and direction get a lot of credit for that too though.
Another reason I was surprised by the success of this film here, is the graphic nature of some of the scenes. I’m guessing a lot of people who saw it aren’t used to the boundary-pushing of European cinema, and were probably caught off guard. We were.
There are three scenes of sexual abuse or violence that were pretty shocking, and definitely won’t make it into the American version, which is apparently now in casting. (Allegedly Ellen Page is a contender to play Lisbeth, which in my opinion would be a bad choice. And Angelina Jolie was apparently sought before the remembered she’s way too old. Sidenote: isn’t it lame that big American movies always have to have the hot star of the moment? Rapace is awesome in this role because you’ve never seen her before and have no preconceived notions or baggage.)
I definitely recommend this film, but know what you’re getting into. It’s dark and graphic and not for everyone.
One really interesting sidenote is that none of the three books (The other two are The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest) in the trilogy were published until after Larsson died in 2004. According to Wiki he wrote them for pleasure, as a hobby, and made no attempt to publish them until just before he died.
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