I loved last year’s Swedish version (it was #8 on my list of the year’s best) and had very high hopes for this film by David Fincher (The Social Network, Zodiac, Fight Club). Those hopes have been fulfilled.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tells the first part of journalist-turned-novelist Stieg Larsson’s Milenium trilogy. The stories are centered on Larsson’s muckraker alter ego Mikael Blomkvist and the damaged and driven Goth hacker Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is only 90 pounds, so she will lose a fistfight with a man; but she prevails with her smarts, resourcefulness and machine-like relentlessness. Lisbeth is always mad AND always gets even.
In top rate performances, Daniel Craig plays Blomkvist and Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth. Lisbeth is the key to the movie, and Mara comes through with a compelling portrayal – stone faced until she explodes into a cyclone of wrath. The other characters are played superbly by Stellan Skarsgard, Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright and Stephen Berkoff.
Fincher is still operating at his best. Remember – The Social Network is essentially about some annoying, immature geeks writing computer code and getting financing for a company – but Fincher made it rock! Fight Club‘s desperate violence and Zodiac‘s whodunit relentlessness translated directly to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. So there couldn’t be a better director for this project than Fincher. I’m looking forward to his versions of the next two chapters in the saga.
Fincher shot the film in Sweden and had made the country look and feel unrelentingly frigid.
The score by Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor is award worthy and is a major contribution to the story.