Running Time: 2 hours, 38 minutes
Rating: R
Director: David Fincher
Quick Impressions:
I haven’t read the books (yet) or seen the Swedish movie trilogy (yet), so I’m not very well qualified to review The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (But I have seen The Social Network, which somehow feels relevant because David Fincher is directing, Rooney Mara is starring, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are doing the score.) Given my novice background, I can’t comment on how this film compares with previous incarnations of the story or characters.
That said, I loved the movie. Both my husband and I (who sometimes have radically different taste) found the movie thoroughly engaging, exciting, and ultimately satisfying. We were shocked to leave the theater and realize three hours had passed. The movie never dragged. I’m really dying to read the books now.
The Good:
Christopher Plummer is awesome in this movie. I just watched Beginners online the other night, so I was already feeling rather favorable toward him, but I love the character he plays in this film. He brings such panache to the role of a well-meaning but understandably jaded patriarch of a family of Nazis, lunatics, drunkards, and capitalists. And when you listen to him talking about a young man losing his way and joining the Nazi party, it’s rather hard to forget he was also the patriarch in The Sound of Music and very nearly had a similar character for a son-in-law.
Rooney Mara is also really fantastic as Lisbeth Salander, though it’s hard for me to separate the actress from the character. Of course, I saw Rooney Mara in The Social Network but remember her mainly from the credits, where her name was Rooney Mara (hard to forget). I never saw Noomi Rapace in the role of Lisbeth, though I believe everybody that she was magnificent. I hate judging one actor by another’s performance in the same role, anyway, so it’s probably good that I have no basis for comparison.
Mara is excellent. She completely loses herself in the role. (In my book, she deserves an Oscar nomination for piercing her nipple alone. Personally, I would only get painful piercings if someone offered me the Nobel Prize for Literature, which seems an unlikely scenario.) Lisbeth is a really fascinating character, easy to root for but hard to figure out. She seems equal parts sociopath, autistic savant, and lovable waif. Basically, she’s someone cooler than you will ever be who would be such an awesome friend to have unless she killed you.
So the movie is worth seeing for Plummer and Mara alone.
But there’s more. So much more.
The story is so intriguing. One possible flaw (that I discuss at length later) is that the solution to the mystery is incredibly predictable to the movie audience (or at least to this member of it). However, that doesn’t stop the movie from being exciting. Besides that, the movie is wonderfully, horribly, painfully suspenseful. As my husband and I left the theater, we discussed one long scene that cuts back and forth between Mara’s Lisbeth and Craig’s Blomkvist. Basically, nothing happens for ten minutes. Maybe longer. Yet we were both on the edge of our seats the entire time. And as I hinted earlier, I figured out both pieces of the solution to the mystery almost right away. Knowing that didn’t lessen the suspense one bit.
Suddenly, I remembered the free-floating terror I had experienced as a result of watching one of Fincher’s earlier films, Zodiac. (Serial killers can strike without apparent reason at any time. The Zodiac killer was never caught.) This film reminded me more of Zodiac than any of Fincher’s other films, but the plot structure and pacing were much more conventional and enjoyable in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
The score was pretty cool, too. And I loved seeing all the snow. I’d love to spend Christmas in Sweden (but not with Henrick’s family).
Best Scene:
I’ll tell you what is not the best scene—the rape scene (I suppose I should say the more violent of the rape scenes). It’s not that it’s badly done. It’s just so disturbing. (It’s meant to be, of course.) What’s far more disturbing is that the scene’s later complement is much, much less disturbing than it ought to be.
I should add, though, that I really, really love the way this movie presents rape. Very simply, rape is something horrible and odious that can happen to anyone. It really has nothing to do with the victim and everything to do with the perpetrator. If you’re raped, you shouldn’t be ashamed or sorry. You should be angry. You have a right to be angry.
Best Surprise:
I think the most intellectually exciting point in the movie comes when Blomkvist’s teenaged daughter visits and accidentally reveals a dimension to the case that he’d never previously considered. This is also the moment in the film when we realize that Harriet and Lisbeth have quite a bit in common.
Another exciting moment comes when Blomkvist reluctantly visits a very unpopular member of the family, who turns out to be shockingly different than expected and delivers one of the best lines of the film.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Rooney Mara):
Lisbeth is a fascinating character, and what makes Mara’s performance great is not any one scene but how Lisbeth’s character is revealed through a number of very different scenes. There are moments when she is so eerily calculating, cunning and inhuman even in her mannerisms that she seems more like a velociraptor from Jurassic Park or a cyborg from The Terminator than a human woman. But then sometimes, she’s relaxed, fluidly confident and extremely sensuous. And then at other moments, she’s like a child. I, personally, really liked the way she recovered her bag in the subway station and then went on about her business.
The Other Performances:
I’m gradually warming up to Daniel Craig. I still don’t find him exactly appealing, but he is a good actor. And he’s great as Mikael Blomkvist because he manages to seem so nondescript and normal, quite important for a character who spends the film surrounded by people who are deranged, demented, or in one way or another radically exceptional. I love Stellan Skarsgård. He’s a great actor, and in this film he has a meaty role and an interesting character. Joely Richardson and Geraldine James are also very good. After just watching Beginners, I’m quite impressed with Goran Visnjic’s versatility. Robin Wright was kind of forgettable as Erika Berger, not bad, just not very interesting. Maybe that’s not her fault.
The Negatives:
I’m guessing that the book is not as predictable as the movie. Almost right away, I came up with two solutions to the mystery. Having seen a lot of movies in my time, I was pretty sure one idea or the other would be correct. In fact, both were correct.
Movie adaptations have certain limitations. When Blomkvist first arrives on the island and begins talking with Henrik about the family, the conversation immediately gets complicated and muddled. Early on in the investigation, even Blomkvist himself remarks on quickly losing track of who’s who. There are a lot of characters involved. Even apart from the mystery of Harriet’s murder, the family structure itself is insanely complicated. I’m pretty sure there are more people living on that island than there are on my facebook friends list. (And I’m positive there are more Nazis.) (At least, more admitted Nazis.) (Now I’m starting to scare myself.) Plus, this whole thing happened decades ago! On top of that, we soon learn there’s actually more than one mystery. Plus, everyone has a Swedish name that sounds unfamiliar to ears used to English. Plus, the clues to solving the mystery within the mystery come in the form of arcane coded notations.
I’m sure the book is hard to figure out. I’m sure if I were reading the extremely complicated book, I’d never be able to guess the ending. The book probably takes the time to introduce us to all the bizarre, eccentric characters who may be viable and intriguing suspects.
But the movie only has two hours and thirty-eight minutes, and part of that time has to show the development of Lisbeth’s character. So the movie uses typical cinematic short cuts and gives away the ending to anyone who has ever seen a movie.
After making us dizzy with a barrage of strange names that we can’t possibly keep straight, the film turns to us and says, “So now that you know that this whole thing is impossibly complicated, allow us to introduce you to the murderer. Remember, audience, the situation is confusing, but since you’re our friend, here’s a big hint. There’s only one family member you can definitely remember and keep track of right? Hint! Hint! Hint!”
The movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire does something very similar, and I’m not sure there’s a way around it. I mean, the movie is already almost three hours long. (Exactly three hours for us thanks to what felt like years of previews.) The mystery itself is complicated. The way the movie presents it is not. I’m reminded of how a friend described our Basic Ideas of Astronomy course in college. “In real astronomy, you have to solve a lot of equations. We just want you to be aware that there are equations.”
Overall:
I loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It had a compelling plot, fascinating characters, a good story, fitting music, captivating scenes, and intense suspense. It’s definitely much more exciting than most movies out this year. I can’t wait to read the book.