Sun 13 Feb 2011
A Movie Review by David L. Vineyard: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sweden, 2009).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[10] Comments
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. ( Män som hatar kvinnor, literally “Men Who Hate Women.”) Sweden, 2009. Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace. Screenplay Niolaj Arcel, Rasmuss Heisterberg. Based on the novel by Stieg Larrson. Director: Niels Arden Opley.
I won’t go much into the complex plot of this international best selling thriller, the posthumous first of a trilogy by Swedish journalist Stieg Larrson. This Swedish film of the book, part of what is known as the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest are the other two), introduces the protagonists Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist and publisher of Millennium, an expose magazine, and Lisbeth Salander, a gifted violent and almost feral computer researcher.
To summarize the plot as simply as possible (and leaving a good deal out) Blomkvist faces ruin after a libel suit following his expose of a prominent industrialist’s criminal activities. While waiting a possible jail sentence and financial ruin he is commissioned by Henrik Vanger, the former CEO of Vanger Industries to find out what happened to his niece Harriet, who disappeared forty years earlier, under the guise of researching a history of the Vanger family. Vanger believes someone in the family murdered Harriet, and taunts him by sending him a framed flower every year on his birthday as Harriet once did.
Vanger makes no bones about his family. They are a bad lot, but Harriet was one bright spot among the twisted monsters around her.
Meanwhile unknown to Blomkvist, Vanger has him investigated, the research done by Lisbeth Salander, the girl of the title, a mysterious young woman with a photographic memory and rare skills in her field. Lisbeth is hostile, violent, paranoid, defensive, and dresses in semi Goth outfits, black jeans and pullovers (her nose is pierced too) and rides a motorcycle. She is being sexually extorted by the man who runs her trust fund, but after a brutal rape turns the tables on him.
Lisbeth has dark secrets that Rapace echoes largely like a silent star, mostly with her eyes.
Eventually Blomkvist discovers Lisbeth, and they join forces, uncovering a history of sexual abuse and murder — a possible serial killer — dating back forty years (the sins of the past that haunt the Vanger family could almost come from a Ross Macdonald novel). Their descent into Vanger family history becomes steadily more disturbing until Blomkvist faces torture and murder and is saved only by Lisbeth’s timely arrival.
But the death of one killer is only the beginning, and there are dark secrets and the fate of Harriet Vanger still to be uncovered, nor is Lisbeth willing to leave Blomkvist to his fate.
There is a good deal more than this going on. The book could easily be a cross between Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Andrew Vachss, Mickey Spillane, and a Swedish William Faulkner, with a bit of de Sade and Henry Miller thrown in to boot.
There are enough literary analogies and references for a few dozen dissertations in it without even touching on the social, political, sexual, and psychological depths, but the film manages to capture the feel and the mood of the book even without the benefit of some of its more literary pleasures.
The film version takes a bit to get started, being faithful to the novel with a 152 minute running time. You may find yourself confused how the two narrative tracks are going to join, or wonder when and if they are, but Nyqvist is well cast as the middle aged moral hero and Noomi Rapace is perfect as Lisbeth Salander, who has her own demons.
It is a difficult role, physically and mentally demanding, a sort of female Mike Hammer with a tortured soul and Rapace’s large dark eyes staring out from the face of a child woman will stay with you long after the film ends. Few actresses expose themselves both physically and psychologically as naked as Rapace does in this film
When the film does get going, it is uncompromising, violent, dark, and yet neither exploitative nor merely sensational. Director Opley’s hand is certain, even gifted, and the film is both stunningly shot and sharply written and staged.
It can’t have been easy shaping Larrson’s unwieldy, in length anyway, very literary work into a taut film, but the effort pays off in a stunning film adaptation that is as good a translation of a big dense book to the screen as I’ve seen in many a year.
This is not a feel good film, but it is satisfying, and surprisingly the hero and heroine come across as human and vulnerable when they could easily have been preachy and self-satisfied in light of the book and movie’s themes of corporate corruption, sexual violence against women, traces of Nazi fascism lingering in the underbelly of wealthy Swedish society, the darkness at the heart of a supposedly perfect society, and generations of sexual abuse and despair.
That Blomkvist and Lisbeth emerge as people you actually care about is a tribute to both the script and the actors playing the roles.
I’ll be watching the sequel The Girl Who Played With Fire in a few days The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest has yet to be released on DVD, but I look forward to it, If they keep up this level of work it may prove the best such series of films since The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films.
The American version of the film is in production, but I don’t have high hopes for it. It could hardly look any better, and I can’t imagine an American actress exposing the same mix of vulnerability and toughness while maintaining a core of humanity as real as Rapace’s. No doubt we will get a kick ass Lisbeth much more conventionally pretty and glamorous, but not half as real as Salander.
Even if you were indifferent to the book, or just have no urge to read it, see this film. Don’t wait for the American version — I can virtually assure you it won’t tackle half the subject matter or half as graphically. I do warn you, this is violent, sexually graphic, and certainly adult, but it is never sensational or exploitative, and the two characters at its heart prove to be someone you care for in a way rare to any thriller.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is one of the best thrillers I’ve seen in ages — adult, complex, and uncompromising. I actually kept the NetFlix DVD an extra day and watched it again. It’s that good. The Girl Who Played With Fire is next in the queue and I look forward to it.
See this one, but be prepared. It is visceral experience unlike any thriller I’ve seen in many years. It comes at you and refuses to be ignored or just watched, but insists on being experienced. You may well have the urge to pull away a few times while watching it, to distance yourself a bit, but when the credits roll I suspect you will have the same reaction I did.
Damn good movie.
February 13th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Since writing this I’ve seen THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, and while it is not quite as good as the first film I am in awe of Noomi Rapace’s performance in both films.
There is nothing wrong with the second film — but it is very much a continuation and expansion on events from the first film and a set up for the third. Like the first it starts slowly, and like the first builds to a powerful conclusion — though one some viewers may find a little abrupt.
And I should warn those easily offended the sex and violence are if anything more explicit in the second film. If that bothers you please take note.
For those who hate subtitles the films are also available dubbed. I’d rather have the subtitles, but understand some people hate them.
If the same high quality is continued in the third film this will prove to be as remarkable a trilogy of films as it already has of novels.
For the second film to be not quite as good as the first only means it is still one of the best thrillers I’ve seen in years.
Incidentally, Rapace said that she would not do the American film even if asked — and I don’t blame her. She throws herself so fully and physically into these two films that it must have been wrenching to play Lisbeth.
To give you an idea just how fully she transforms herself, if you rent the DVD of TGWDT watch the English language interview — you won’t even recognize her as the woman in the film.
So far I have only rented these, but if the third film holds up to this same standard I will be buying. These are films you will want to watch again.
February 13th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
This is a must see for every mystery and detective fiction fan, as far as I’m concerned.
Read the last two paragraphs of David’s review again. He has said it far better than I could.
I think you’ll enjoy and appreciate it more if you’ve read the book first, but maybe that’s only because that’s the way I did it.
But there are many scenes that are exactly the way I had them pictured in my mind, or mirror image, strangely enough, and once you’ve seen Noomi Rapace playing Lisbeth Salander on the screen (photos just aren’t enough) you will believe you have seen Lisbeth Salander come to life.
There is one chunk of the story that’s omitted in the film, though when it was shown on Swedish TV as a mini-series (I believe) some of that chunk was there. It’s a long book, and you can’t blame them for leaving parts of it out.
There is one scene in the movie that I do not remember being in the book. I suspect it’s in the second one, which I’m only halfway through, but not for long.
February 13th, 2011 at 11:34 pm
I have not read any of the books. Probably never will either. I did see the first movie last fall because I had to find out what the fascination was all about. I was surprised that I really liked it – torture sequences and all. (Not a big fan of intensely violent scenes like that bit with the tattooing on her boss’ abdomen but I watched and actually urged her on!) I know I’m reducing it to a kind of Hollywood pitch but it was like “Chandler in the Land of the Midnight Sun” to me. Don’t mean to denigrate it in any way. I found it thrilling, suspenseful in a way most thrillers never manage anymore, and often the relationship between the two leads was poignant. Rapace was astonishing. She took on this role with such a fury.
I read several film reviews that said the second film is very hard to understand without a knowledge of the book. I have avoided watching it for that reason. Any thoughts on that?
February 13th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Until I saw these I would have called THE LORD OF THE RINGS the best adaptation of a strongly literary property to the screen, but these two films are one of the few times the movie in my head while reading the book was almost exactly echoed on screen.
I’m probably raving, but raves are deserved. Nyqvist is good — everyone is good — even the silent blonde monster in the second film manages a hell of a performance with nothing but largely expressionless stares. Towards the end there is a scene where he conveys more with a look and physical resignation than a dozen pages of dialogue could.
But the two films (and I suspect the third) are Rapace’s, and I cannot emphasize enough how good she is and how wrenchingly physical this role is.
But, and I want to make sure this is clear, Lisbeth is not one of those cartoon superwomen now a staple of films — she’s no Lara Croft or Mrs. Peel. Lisbeth is severely damaged, almost feral, and quite possibly borderline sociopathic. She isn’t a superwoman. She not only gets hurt, she loses physcial encounters. Her savagery and anger can sometimes carry the day, but not always. She is incredibly clever, but can fall victim of her own cleverness and self reliance. Primarily she is a survior, but one who does not emerged unscathed. That dragon tattoo is the physical representation of both her spirit and her scars — it is her armor and her weakness — a talisman and a curse.
Toward the end of the second book there is a twist that would seem absurd if Larsen had not set Lisbeth up as the near force of nature he has made her — for any actress but Rapace it could well play as over the top or even melodramatic — but with her it is not only acceptable — it feels believable.
Rapace is the reason you buy the scene. It is a largely physical role with much less dialogue than you would expect. In fact in both films I was struck how much of the complex plot was conveyed without resorting to the characters sitting down and explaining it to the audience in the artificial way we have all grown so used to. I’m not sure I could not have watched it without the subtitles and still have followed much of the plot.
Finding a visual way of conveying complex plot elements — sometimes with nothing but a look between characters or a reaction shot, is no mean trick in any film, and here with this multi layered and often complex plot it is stunning how often and simply it is done. These two films could easily have been talky and static, but neither is.
I was also stuck by the complexity of the relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth — it is much deeper than a romance, much more than physical. The film manages to convey what the novels can express, which is that these two people are the extremes of a single whole individual — Mikael the intellect, compassion, and idealism — Libeth the passion, violence, appetite, fury, and innocence — because it is plain in the book and film that Lisbeth is a child in woman’s body — her reactions those of a child and a damaged child at that.
Visually the films these reminded me of were ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. There are no similar plot elements mind you (save for the corruption in high places in the Swedish government), only the film-makers ability to visually relate a story that would otherwise have descended into a series of talky explanatory scenes.
I agree with Steve about reading the books first, but you don’t need to have read them to follow the plot or understand the motivations of the characters. But by all means see these films. They may well be the best film you see for a long time. They may well prove to be the best thrillers if the decade.
They are that good.
February 13th, 2011 at 11:50 pm
John
If you have seen the first film you will be able to follow the second one. It explains and takes off from some of the elements of the first film that were implied but not stated, and gives us more of the history of Lisbeth — with at least two pretty shocking revelations along the way.
It’s not quite as good as the first film, but only because by the nature of the story it is crossing t’s and dotting i’s while setting up the third and final installment.
But you don’t need to have read the second book if you have seen the first film.
Like the first film it is slow to start to some extent, and like the first one if builds to an emotionally satisfying climax, though I warn you, it ends somewhat abruptly with quite a bit yet to be resolved.
February 14th, 2011 at 12:08 am
Just a note on one element I didn’t mention but Geoff did in his review of the books.
Lisbeth is clearly a high functioning adult victim of autism (even the savant like ‘photographic memory’ is a symptom of autism — though no such thing as a photographic memory exists), and that explains a good deal of her nature, but I do think Larsen was less interested in portraying a high functioning victim of autism than the idea of Lisbeth as a sort of feral child.
Her autism exists less to highlight the problems of the autistc, than as a sort of metaphor for the inablity of the society she lives in to deal with certain dark aspects of its culture. Lisbeth’s role in the books and the films is to force us to see those things we don’t wish to see.
John
Liked the “Chandler in the land of the midnight sun,” though Ross Macdonald might be a bit closer all things considered. After all, the closest thing to Chandler in the book is Lisbeth who is sort of a benign Carmen Sternwood.
February 14th, 2011 at 12:34 am
One more note, the American version, now filming, stars Daniel Craig as Blomkvist, Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, Stellan Starsgard as Marcus Vanger, and is directed by David Fincher with a Steve Zalligan script.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:16 am
Two quick things.
Re Noomi Rapace TIME’s Richard Corliss called her a “21rst Century Garbo.”
Of her own performance and playing the role she said that when she was done, her body revolted and she was sick for a week. I believe her. I usually take it with a grain of salt when critics talk about an actor’s ‘courage’ in playing a difficult part, but immersion in Salander for three films took just that.
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST is available now on DVD so you can rent or buy the entire trilogy.
February 23rd, 2011 at 4:00 am
Just to let everyone know the third film answers all the questions and neatly ties up all the loose ends while still leaving room for the characters to grow and move in new directions.
It opens minutes after the second film ends in the medivac helicopter with the wounded Salander and her father, and quickly picks up threads of the conspiracies swirling around her from her childhood on as Blomkvist, determined to protect her and reveal her tormentors finds himself and his staff under increasing pressure to keep quiet.
As with the book any questions you had about what made her the way she is are answered as she gets a satisfying revenge on all her tormentors. It may be a little too neat in that respect, but by the time you’ve read all three books or watched all three films I think you’ll be happier everything is tied up than critical that it is a bit too tidy.
Rapace incidentally has been signed to play a French gypsy in the sequel to last years Robert Downey SHERLOCK HOLMES with Downey and Jude Law both back as Holmes and Watson.
March 1st, 2011 at 1:33 am
The film trilogy is now available as a set.
TIME (03/7/11) said:
“You’ve read the books and can’t wait for the David Fincher version? See the original Swedish films, now boxed, with Noomi Rapace superb as Larsson’s cunning tattooed hacker Lisbeth Salander.”