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Fans of Stieg Larsson's Men Who Hate Women may have been concerned about how the Swedish author's novel would translate to the screen, but they needn't have worried. Significant changes to the source material have been made, but director Niels Arden Opley's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as it's now called, is mostly riveting. As the story begins, middle-aged investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has just been convicted of a bogus charge of libel against a rich and corrupt corporate hotshot when he's unexpectedly offered a most unusual gig. An aging captain of industry named Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) wants Blomkvist to figure out what happened to Vanger's niece, who disappeared more than 40 years earlier; not only is the old man convinced that she was murdered, but he suspects that another member of his large and rather disagreeable family (which includes several former Nazis) is the culprit. Blomkvist takes the job, which includes spending at least six months on Vanger's isolated island in the middle of winter. But what he doesn't know is that he's being spied on by twentysomething Lisbeth Salander (brilliantly played by Noomi Rapace in a career-making performance), the titular Girl and the possessor of remarkable skills as a sleuth and computer hacker. With her gothlike piercings and all-black clothes, Lisbeth is a vivid character, to say the least. While we don't exactly know the details of her dark past, it's obviously still with her; indeed, she's just been assigned a new "guardian" (like a parole officer) to look after her finances and other matters. We also know that she is not someone to mess with; when the guardian turns out to be a thoroughly vile monster, Lisbeth gets back at him in one of the more satisfying revenge sequences in recent memory. That Lisbeth and Mikael should end up working together, and more, isn't especially surprising. But the horrifying details and depths of depravity they uncover while working on the case (parallels to The Silence of the Lambs are facile but appropriate) definitely are, and Opley does a nice job of keeping it all straight. At more than two and a half hours, the film is long, with its share of grim, graphic, and scary moments, but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a winner. --Sam Graham
From the Studio
What is hidden in snow, comes forth in the thaw...
Hoping to distance himself from the fallout of a libel conviction, journalist Mikael Blomkvist retreats to a remote island in Sweden's far north where the unsolved murder of a young girl still haunts her industrialist uncle forty years later. Ensconced in a cottage on the island where the killer may still roam, Blomkvist's investigation draws him into the secrets and lies of the rich and powerful, and throws him together with one unlikely ally - tattooed, punk hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Academy Award® nominee Rooney Mara).
Customer Reviews
And the film adapted from the late Stieg Larsson's first bestselling novel is a soon-to-be-classic example of a movie that has way more going on than it appears. It's a bit on the slow side at times, but it also has a raw, stark quality that hits you harder than any Hollywood blockbuster could -- and Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist are nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Take-no-prisoners journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has just lost his reputation, his savings and his freedom (hello, jail sentence!) after a nasty libel suit from an executive.
Then he's unexpectedly contacted by aged industrialist Henrik Vanger, to discover what happened to the guy's grandniece, Harriet. She vanished forty years ago from the family's isolated island home, and her body -- alive or dead -- was never found. When Mikael agrees to take the case, he's cybershadowed by the abused goth hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace).
Eventually Lisbeth reveals herself to Mikael by decoding vital information and sending it to him. Intrigued by this strange wounded woman, Mikael asks her to help him in his cold-case investigation, and the two begin unwinding a bizarre string of serial killings from long ago -- all tied to Bible quotes. And as Mikael unearths the clues to Harriet's disappearance, he also finds some skeletons long kept buried.
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" takes the Agatha Christie aesthetic of a locked-room murder with a dozen suspects, and enfolds it in a ruthless look at modern Swedish society and the study of sexual aggression. It's a dark, dangerous, unfair world where the truth is quashed and women are treated horribly -- whether it's the long-missing Harriet or the eccentric, angry "girl with the dragon tattoo."
And it translates Larsson's novel beautifully -- there's a raw, almost primitive power to the story, under all the snow and icy Swedish landscape. Niels Arden Oplev gives the movie a sort of stark wild beauty, but also weaves in some horribly disturbing scenes (the ghastly, helpless rape of Lisbeth by her corrupt "guardian" -- followed by a gleefully horrific scene where she gets her revenge). And the murder mystery is absolutely brilliant, especially when Lisbeth unravels Harriet's code.
And Mikael and Salander make an intriguing odd couple -- Nyquist's journalist is worn and weary of the world, and both the Harriet case and meeting Lisbeth rekindle his interest in the truth. And Rapace is absolutely electric as Lisbeth, who is one of the most devastatingly brilliant characters in modern cinema -- she's a wild, bleeding creature who hides her bruises behind a mask of piercings and jet-dyed hair, and whose torn-up heart begins to heal a little when she meets Mikael.
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is blessed with brilliant direction, powerful acting, and a stark look at the way women are treated by cruel men. Not a light movie, but definitely a classic in the making.
When the movie showed up in my town to not much fanfare, I went with a friend. Although it is subtitled in English,, after a few minutes the subtitles become dialogue in your head, as your mind gives voice to the characters, as it does when you read a book. The movie was superbly cast and filmed and simply added to my enjoyment of the books and confirmed my own images of the characters. My friend pronounced it the best movie he'd seen. Highly recommended.
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