The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

"Hold still. I've never done this before."

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: I have not read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo nor have I seen the Swedish film adaptation. The book is on my to-read list, but in all honesty, it’s pretty far down the list. As a born skeptic, every time a book gets as much attention as the Milennium Trilogy has, I become wary and usually assume it is akin to another Dan Brown novel (no offense to Dan Brown fans) and decide to read something else. I can’t discuss differences between the movie and book or the relative merits of each; I can only tell you what I thought of this movie as it stands on its own.

Regardless of the way I personally choose what books to read, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is immensely popular in North America, most people are too lazy to read the subtitles of the Swedish film, so obviously a Hollywood adaptation was in order. David Fincher, riding high from the success of last year’s The Social Network, takes the director’s chair and returns to the type of crime story he told in Seven and Zodiac. As a huge fan of most of Fincher’s work, I think he is at his best in these types of stories.

The film stars Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist fresh out of a court battle that has ruined his reputation and drained him of his life savings. To get away from it all and to make some money, he takes a job from Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to try and solve a mystery that has gone unsolved for forty years: the disappearance of his grandniece, Harriet. The story focuses on Mikael slowly piecing together the mystery through his run-ins with Vanger’s estranged relatives and looking at old police reports and newspapers.  

Running parallel to Mikael’s story is the tale of the titular girl with the dragon tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, played to perfection by Rooney Mara (Zuckerberg’s ex-girlfriend from the Social Network). Her transformation into Lisbeth is truly remarkable and the movie is worth watching for her performance alone. Her character is, sadly, a bit clichéd, and most of the story is solved by her being a computer genius and good at everything. You just have to take it at face value that she has access to all information everywhere whenever she wants and she is always one mouse-click away from what she needs. This is lazy writing, both in the movie and I assume in the book; it’s akin to the “zoom, enhance” nonsense from CSI shows. It gets out of control in the last twenty minutes of the film where she turns into James Bond and somehow has all of the skills of an international spy. Aside from this silliness, Lisbeth’s character is genuinely interesting. I enjoyed learning the bits and pieces that are offered about her life so much so that it makes me want to read the Milennium books just to learn more about her.

The mystery itself is interesting and well-told for the most part, but it relies far too much on the audience’s ability to memorize the names of the characters (and there are many). My advice to those watching (who, like me, have not read the book) is to pay close attention to everyone’s names moreso than you usually might when watching a movie. The final reveal is surprisingly fast and oddly without any real drama and it is easy to miss the quick line of dialogue that communicates the final twist in the story. There is a bit of a rushed feeling to the whole movie, like it constantly wants to move forward and doesn’t want to dwell on anything for too long. Even the final shot of the film, which is at the end of a fairly emotional scene, ends abruptly and the credits come on faster than a sitcom. It’s almost like the movie is telling you not to reflect on the scene and wants you to go away. This feeling, unfortunately, pervades throughout, and I would have gladly sacrificed some of the scenes that feel like they were there solely because they’re in the book for a simpler, slower version of what is not a very complicated story.

It may sound like I didn’t like this movie, but that isn’t the case. I think I just expected it to stand more on its own and for Fincher Zaillian (who also wrote this year’s fantastic Moneyball) and to make it more of their own film. I am confident that the last twenty minutes would have been cut had they not been adapting such a popular book. This section is unnecessary to this story in particular, is overlong, and I assume is important in the sequels. In this film though it just seems like padding. The movie is nearly three hours long and I can think of several scenes that could have been cut and the movie would have been equally as coherent (although I am told there are large sections cut from the book anyway, so it seems like not everything was sacred).

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross again provide the score (they also did the phenomenal Social Network soundtrack) and they do not disappoint. The duo again uses electronic sounds and ambient noises effectively to help push the tension created by the film's cinematography. The opening cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song (featuring Karen O. on vocals) has also made its way on to my iPod.

Despite my nagging issues, this is a well-made film and I recommend it to anyone who likes a good yet somewhat predictable mystery, whether you have read the book or not. Mara’s performance as Lisbeth is the birth of a modern movie star, like Noomi Rapace’s was in the same role in the Swedish version (you can catch her in the new Sherlock Holmes movie). The movie is highly graphic, so keep that in mind when watching with the family. Just remember to pay attention to the names.