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Movie Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Movie Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I've never read Stieg Larsson's novel, nor have I seen the popular 2009 Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo either, although I do plan to at some point. Perhaps the lack of familiarity with the story aided in my liking of David Fincher's remake/re-adaptation of the now well-recognized story. Perhaps.

I know a lot of people, and critics too, who seem to feel very strongly that an English version was not needed so close to it's foreign predecessor. I realize that when somebody enjoys a film, a remake like this is seen as somewhat of a slap in the face and immediately proclaimed to be unnecessary.

Playing devil's advocate, I would argue that this version is entirely necessary. TGWTDT became a best seller in the US some time after Larsson's death, selling nearly 15 million copies as of June of this year. The Swedish film did excellently overseas, but made less than 1/10 of it's total gross in the US. This obviously has a lot to do with a reluctance to see subtitled films, but the fact of the matter is that many people who have read and enjoyed the novel have yet to see a film adaptation. And I couldn't think of a better, more capable director to tackle Dragon Tattoo. Fincher has already created two gritty murder investigation dramas in Se7en and Zodiac, so the subject matter is right up his alley.

Daniel Craig plays journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who has recently been disgraced due to a libel action that resulted in a large judgment against him. Soon after, Blomkvist is invited to visit Henrik Vanger, former CEO of Vanger Industries, a company currently run by his nephew Martin. Reluctantly, Blomkvist visits where he is told the story of the nearly 40-year-old disappearance of Vanger's niece Harriet from the family island in northern Sweden. Vanger asks Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance that has been thought of as a murder for years while hiding his true purpose behind a cumulative memoir. In return, Blomkvist will be given dirt that could destroy the man that ruined his career with the libel suit.

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When Blomkvist asks for a research assistant after a period of time, he is introduced to the troubled Lisbeth Salander, a freelance researcher and computer whiz who had secretly investigated Blomkvist before Vanger's offer. The two continue down the dark investigative path filled with lies and deceit, and as Henrik put it, a group of "despicable" family members.

I'm not sure TGWTDT could have ever lived up to the hype that I had placed on the film, which was furthered by the series of fantastic trailers, but it comes damn close. Fincher has become a master of the dark and gritty, turning the unpleasant and often revolting into something that is visually captivating and haunting. For me, this fits somewhere in the middle of his loose trilogy (basically related only in genre, and style to some extent): it's not as original, disturbing or memorable as Se7en, but I found it tighter and more tense than Zodiac.

The 160-minute run time flew by without too many scenes that felt unnecessary or out of rhythm. It's a pretty cohesive narrative until near the end when things get a bit choppy and begin to trail off a bit as most everything is wrapped up. Again, not being familiar with the source material makes it hard to compare, and I've heard some criticism of the storytelling in both this adaptation and the novel itself, but I didn't really have any similar criticisms.

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At times, Dragon Tattoo is uncomfortably brutal. The rape sequences don't hold anything back, and are as disturbing as Larsson intended them to be.

My biggest complaint deals with the inevitable issue of accents, as the film is still set in Sweden with the Swedish names, yet many of the characters speak with English accents. I realize this is basically an unavoidable problem - you can't change the character names or locations, and if every actor was putting on a thick Swedish accent it may seem cartoonish or unauthentic when compared to the native Swedish version. In reality, this isn't as much a complaint as it is a slight annoyance, and the acting helps push the accents into the background a little bit.

Craig is as good as I've seen him, but his work is overshadowed by the revelation that is Rooney Mara in the film's title role. Mara underwent as significant a transformation as I can recall, and her performance is fascinating, disturbing and heartbreaking all at once. With the exception of Michael Fassbender's work in Shame, Mara's performance as Salander is as exposed a role you will see this year. For me, it's the best female acting performance I've seen thus far.

Rating: 9/11

- For all my 2011 reviews, visit: http://mastersofourdomain.blogspot.com/

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