Director:Niels Arden Oplev
Screenplay: Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg (based on the novel by Stieg Larsson)
Producer: Søren Stærmose
Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube
Year: 2009
Country: Sweden
MPAA Rating: Not Rated (would be R)
Duration: 152 min
(4.5/5)There are a couple of things that I tend to find deadly dull in movies that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was in danger of falling into – mysteries that wallow in the detectives’ personal trauma to the exclusion of the mystery itself, and adaptations of best-selling books that feel the need to be so faithful there’s no room to breathe as a film. Thankfully, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo skirts both of these concerns deftly, managing to balance the mystery with the deep backstory of investigators Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, and also adapting the novel with a judicious eye for cuts and modifications, even improving it in some cases.
Mikael Blomkvist (played with both gravity and ease by veteran Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist) is an investigative journalist just convicted for libel after an expose-gone-wrong. He’s mysteriously summoned to a northern village by Henrik Vanger, 82-year-old former CEO of the Vanger Corporation and patriarch of the sprawling Vanger family. Henrik has a 40-year-old mystery that he’d like Blomkvist to take one last stab at before Henrik succumbs to his advanced age – the murder of his grand-niece Harriet in 1966. Intrigued, Blomkvist agrees and begins working his way through cold evidence and long-dead leads. Meanwhile, brilliant but eccentric researcher Lisbeth Salander, who had been hired by Vanger to do a background check on Blomkvist before Vanger contacted him, finds herself drawn into the mystery as well – but not before she takes care of some business of her own.
This is a film that cares as much or more about its atmosphere and characters as it does about its mystery; it takes its time always, spending a good chuck of runtime on Salander’s parallel plot as she deals with an abusive state-appointed guardian (she’s a ward of the state, despite being 24 years old, declared mentally incompetent due to her sullen refusal to cooperate with psychiatric care – in the novel it’s suggested that she has Asperger’s Syndrome, though the film is less explicit). Yet even that segment, which has nothing to do directly with the Harriet mystery, is thematically related to the main plot of the film; there’s a great deal of mirroring going on here, all very subtle and almost felt rather than stated. And of course, it adds to the depth of Lisbeth’s character – that depth of background and the interesting nature of Lisbeth herself and her relationship with Blomkvist is what sets this story apart from more standard, purely event-driven mysteries.
The film does a really good job of portraying things cinematically, whether it’s the montage that explains the inner workings of the corrupt and complicated Vanger family (in lieu of some thirty pages of monologue in the novel) or the deft way Blomkvist’s breakthrough research on some old photographs is done, allowing us to make the discoveries exactly as he does. In fact, as adaptations go, I almost want to show this to burgeoning screenwriters and say “this is how you do it” – it isn’t afraid to cut to the chase, excising a lot of Blomkvist’s side story without sacrificing any of his character or feeling like it needs to handhold the audience to make them understand the nuances, and it isn’t afraid to make outright changes in order to streamline characters and give events a greater narrative drive or better suit them to the cinematic medium. There were a couple of parts that were a little unclear in the film (i.e., a couple of Blomkvist’s leads seem serendipitous at best), but aside from those niggling points, it works very well.
There’s a lot of brutality in the film, with the mystery leading to events more horrific than you’d initially expect, but it’s counteracted by the Blomkvist’s intense humanity, which is in turn balanced by Salander’s unemotional sense of personal justice. The mystery itself is never anything but intriguing, especially as events escalate – the story may be deliberately paced for quite a while, but that very deliberateness makes the climax that much more intense. Nyqvist’s Blomkvist is a pretty unflappable fellow at first, but he handles the intensity well and loosens up a bunch after Salander enters his life, and Rapace is excellent as Salander – she really captures the external standoffishness that masks Lisbeth’s turmoil. You’d never guess from the casual way she dispatches three hoods in the subway in the opening scene and her punk-hacker attitude throughout that she’d end up as devastatingly vulnerable as she is in a later scene, yet she carries both off with aplomb. Blomkvist and Salandar are an unlikely team, but somehow it works. In fact, Rapace and the film both won awards at last year’s Guldbagge Awards, the Swedish equivalent of the Oscars, and is the highest grossing film in Swedish film history.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opens March 19th in limited release; see the roll-out release schedule here.
Nice. Can’t wait to see this this weekend! Will read the review then.
4.5/5 = lofty expectations now
lol, hope you’re not disappointed! I will just say, since you’re not reading the review yet, expect leisurely pacing and character-driven narrative.
I’m really looking forward to this one. I was worried that we wouldn’t get it here but there have been posters have been up everywhere, so it should be out soon!
I’m planning on catching this on Saturday night, can’t wait. Shutter Island is finally out over here too though as well as Green Zone, but I think this’ll win the toss up, especially with reviews like that!
Shutter Island’s amazing, too. I didn’t see Green Zone, but based on Andrew’s review, I’d say your time would be better spent with either Shutter Island or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – and that’d be quite the dilemma for me. See both!
I had no idea the title was changed for this. It’s called “Men who hate women” and this movie was fucking huge here. So are the books.
The first book has been on the bestseller list in the States for a while, too. I think the second one just came out in hardcover, and the third one isn’t here yet, that I know of. And “Men Who Hate Women” is quite an accurate descriptive title, actually.
Actually, the books title was changed for the English translation (published Jan. 2008), not for the film version. So says wikipedia.
I caught this last night and yes it was really good, totally engrossing. I wasn’t a big fan of the last 15 minutes or so though after the film’s key climax, the further sequences seemed a bit rushed and felt dislocated from the rest of it. Salander’s key scene here was strong though.
Woah! One of the two best films of the year so far. 4.5/5 is exactly right Jandy. The film exceeds on so many different levels that the one or two nagging points (as you mentioned) are easily dismissed – some of the clues tying in being a bit far fetched at times for example.
But the movie isn’t even really about the mystery. It’s the fantastic character arcs. And I know David just mentioned how he didn’t care for the final 15 minutes and I can see that being a valid complaint (the movie is over 150 minutes in length as it is), but I LOVED the way the story took its time with the characters. It was important that everyone’s (I mean everyone’s) arc was tied together so nicely by the end. The story cared about its characters and it would’ve been disingenuous to leave them hanging.
Beyond the character arcs is the cinematic joy of how the mystery is slowly uncovered. Despite some far fetched links that are made, the way the photographs in the movie are used almost like a movie in themselves was hauntingly thrilling.
When do we get the next two installments here in the States!?
Andrew, I’m glad your inflated expectations from my star rating didn’t lead to disappointment!
I do get that complaint about the ending, David, but I liked having that time after the complex to sort of recover and, like Andrew said, finish up with the characters. And for a pointless comparison, the book goes on probably another 150 pages or so after the main climax (because the book has a lot more about the Wennerstrom affair and re-establishing Millennium magazine after Mikael finishes with the Harriet mystery).
Andrew, the thing I loved so much about it was that it balanced the mystery and the character arcs so well. You’re right in that it cares about the characters more, but it never falls into, like, The Black Dahlia territory, which just got SO sidetracked by the uninteresting emotional issues of its detective that it completely forgot about the mystery that started it all (there were other issues with that film, too, but that was kind of the one that started it spiraling all out of control for me). I also liked that even though a fair bit of Salander’s arc is narratively unrelated to the Harriet mystery, it’s most definitely thematically related, so it still feels all of a piece.
And on the photographs. YES. That was the moment when I got totally fully invested, was when he was poring over the photographs. I loved the way that was done in the film, and that was one area where it improved on the book vastly – not only because a mystery dealing with photographs works better when you can see them, but it was paced and revealed better as well. The book does make those far-fetched links more understandable, though.
I believe the second one is due out sometime later this year, actually, but I’m not sure when.
Memory question – I don’t have it in my notes – does the film have the part at the end where Salander is running around in disguises to different locales? I feel like it did, but I don’t really remember.
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It has one locale of her offing Wennerstrom and then getting out of a limo and walking down the sidewalk with obviously a lot of money.
In regard to pictures in books, I remember when The DaVinci Code was all the rage, my sister got me the illustrated version for my birthday or something and I am sure my enjoyment of that book was multiplied several fold because I had all of the paintings and statues and actual locales to look at as they were being described. I can see how that sort of thing would help immensely for this book as well.
Salander does have a disguise on at the end, but it doesn’t show her travelling to lots of different places in different disguises.
Oh yeah I didn’t really have a problem with them tying up the narrative strands like that, I think it was just that the rest of the film was such an effective slow burner that when the final bits and pieces were dealt with it wasn’t as slowly and subtly done and felt a little rushed. Then again if they’d have dragged it out like the end of Return of the King it would have been much worse.
It’s a fairly minor criticism to what is an excellent film though, I just felt like it needed mentioning.
Bring on the sequels! I saw a review saying that the follow ups will be on their way (here at least) in the next couple of months, but there are no solid release dates on IMDB.
Okay, thanks – they changed that from the book. That whole section was FAR too long in the book to be put into the movie, but I think when watching the movie, I kind of agreed with David – it’s a little disconnected. Perhaps they should’ve just left out the Wennerstrom angle entirely except for as background explanation on Blomkvist’s situation.
Andrew, Larsson did it as well as possible in the book – he’s a good visual storyteller. It’s just that when you can see the photograph in question, you’re able to go “wait, why is she looking that way” on your own, and there’s no way to incorporate that into purely textual medium – everything is filtered through Mikael’s viewing of the photograph. Which works fine, but I felt much more a part of the solving process when watching the film. I can definitely see that being able to see the paintings referenced in The Da Vinci Code would be an asset in that, as well. That’s one thing that I hope ebooks do more as they gain traction – the possibilities for including photographs and video (as well as linking dictionaries/encyclopedias/related texts) along with books is hugely exciting. So far, none of the major ebook publishers seem to be moving very quickly in that direction; possibly the copyright issues are just too much to overcome right now.
Great review Jandy. It’s an dexcellent film and what impressed me most is that I didn’t see any of the events coming (aside from the moment when Blomkvist is running through the forest and the camera is a little shaky as if he’s unsure of his step – for some reason it was clear that something was going wrong there). It’s probably the first film since Seven that really had me wrapped in the mystery. Can’t wait for the next 2.
So I pretty much agree, solid film, if a bit long. Really enjoyed the mystery and the characters, and am wondering is this part of a trilogy that uses the same characters or is it a thematic trilogy?
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My one complaint is that after all this intense investigation into the numbers in the bible nobody came up with the idea that they may refer to biblical passages? That was my first thought immediately seeing them. It was a bit confusing in translation so maybe there is more to it.
I wasn’t expecting the film to be so dark, when I originally heard of the film I seriously thought it was a teen movie. My God the Swedes know how to do bleak.
Rot, the trilogy uses the same characters, with a different mystery each time. I haven’t read the other two yet, so I’m not sure if the mysteries are related or not; I think they are not.
so its going to be like John McClane in Die Hard, just happening across one big event to the next? I would prefer that the three stories be linked as one bigger story… sort of the reason I wish the last 15 minutes of the film weren’t there. (Spoiler I guess) But once you get to Australia I was thinking, awesome they are going to set the next movie here and it will be like Wolf Creek grittiness, but the film keeps going.
Here’s the brief description of the second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, from Amazon: “A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden’s sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. Blomkvist strives to clear Salander of the crime.” Unrelated in the main mystery, but I think it’ll go deeper into Salander’s past as a subplot.
And I think it’s wrong to think of it as intentionally a trilogy, as if the three books comprise a self-contained story. It’s a mystery series, like any number of mystery series from Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone books to Lillian Jackson Braun’s The Cat That… books to Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter books. They follow the same detectives, but with different cases. This one ended up a trilogy because Larssen died before writing any more. I’m not an expert, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think he conceived of it specifically as a trilogy.
trilogy or no trilogy, I am surprised this detective story serial idea hasn’t caught on in films before now… I guess Silence of the Lambs is the biggie, but the shit people watch on tv with the thousand different variations of CSI and Law and Order, you would think it would be a perfect fit. Looking forward to this next one, reading it fast, I thought it said Milla Jovovich instead of Mia Johansson, alas.
Rot, I’ll be interested to know what you think of the Red Riding Trilogy.
They used to do it a lot in the ’30s and ’40s. Sherlock Holmes, Detective Wong, Nancy Drew, etc. I think it works better on TV, though, which is probably why doing them as films died down when TV started becoming widespread.
But I would totally watch a detective story serial with Milla Jovovich. Yeah, that’s not news.
I liked this movie but the brutality in it is something I am more comfortable reading than seeing on the screen. The adaptation did justice to the novel, condensing and streamlining events/characters well to progress the plot. I thought that the actor playing Lisbeth was wonderful. I also agree that the ending was a bit awkward.
I may be unfairly comparing this movie to the recent Foreign Film Oscar winner “The Secret in Their Eyes” which I saw last weekend. There are several similarities between the two movies – brutal crime against women, a mystery from the past, and a mystery solved through photos. I found “Secret” to be quite haunting and it will resonate with me. “Girl” was a very good movie with great characters and performances, but since I knew where it was going there was no ‘surprise’ to me like there was in “Secret.”
I look forward to reading what you at Row Three think of “Secret” when you get a chance to see and review it!
I found the ending of the film to be ludicrous in contrast with so much of the rest of the film. It was a deal-breaker for me. I will probably elaborate on this weeks cinecast.
Kurt– In the book, the ending is awesome. I still have not seen the film. Let see what David Fincher does with the trilogy.
That sad part is that David Fincher has already made THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. All he needs is a jobber-editor to stitch material from Seven, Alien3 and Zodiac together, and we basically have it. A shaved headed, blood-shot-eyed and raped Sigourney Weaver is basically Lisbeth.
I’m barely even kidding on this.
Reading Wikipedia’s one-line plot synopses of both the sequels and I’m already yawning. It’s like Robert Jordan or Dan Brown. Yie.
Yeah well, just finished Iron Giant on everyone’s recommendation. Talk about yawn.
In the book, the story exceeds more 150 pages beyond the climax. Unlike most stories, the book Larsson never focuses on the hacking aspect–heck– Salander’s hacking ability is a twist. Through Blomkist’s and Salander’s struggles, the author is abloe to challenge the predated, moral principles of journalism, from different angles.
I would never say that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is really interested in ‘journalistic morals’ even though it bookends the film and provides the motivation for both characters, but still, the movie is not in any way interested in exploring that angle in the story. It’d rather keep showing stills of dead girls. The film completely gets off on showing mutilated stills – I’m not moralizing, I’ve seen worse in films, but it struck me as a tad odd to keep showing and showing (and showing) them over again. But then again, the original title sheds a little more light on it. Too bad the film seems to be ‘getting off’ on its subject matter rather than exploring it in any interesting way.
I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy most of the film, it is just that in the end, it is empty calories and takes itself far too damn serious to enjoy it on the “Big Trouble in Little China’ camp level, although it almost (in my mind anyway) flirts with that at one point or another.
The ending of the film doesn’t fit too well with the rest, you’re right, plus it wasn’t totally clear what was going on as I recall – but by the time I wrote this review (several weeks after I saw the film, though I had taken good notes), I’d almost completely forgotten the ending. I guess I just excised it from my memory because of the lack of cohesion with the rest of the film, which I loved. The ending works better in the book because it picks up the Wennerstrom story that was mostly cut out of the movie (but remained just short of central in the book) and finishes it off – differently than the movie does, actually. I think the movie would’ve been better off if it had just stopped when the main mystery was done, but I’d need a rewatch to decide for sure.
Really, THE IRON GIANT, Really? There is so much heart and nostalgia in that film that it is bursting at the seams!!!
I’m surprised too Andrew. Iron Giant is wonderful. You have a dark, dark heart if you didn’t mist up a bit during “Ho-garth…”
Wow, yeah Iron Giant is beautiful. It got me holding back the waterworks.
First it was Studio Ghibli films, now its the Iron Giant. Looks like you do not like challenging, kids films.
Yeah well, just finished Iron Giant on everyone’s recommendation. Talk about yawn.
I fucking hate you.
Andrew > all of you wimps.
I’ve seen E.T. and 50s nostalgia before. And even by Disney’s usual animation standards of the time it is pretty uninspired. This is not fresh or even “tear inducing.” It’s not bad, I’ve just seen it a million times. It had one or two chuckle moments I suppose. But if you’re gonna hit me over the head with cold war metaphors, do it without boring me. Kurt likes “tough” kids movies that look really great. This is obvious and doesn’t look great.
On a semi-related note, we went to breakfast at a local establishment yesterday and they were showing early, early merry melodies on the big screen – now that was some interesting animation. Light on story and substance to be sure, but the art was amazing.
Thanks for these wonderful insighful comments. I enjoyed reading your comments and also the review. So much better than other forums where people write so much rubbish. Obviously an intelligent forum here!
The teaser for the remake looks awesome. I am usually anti-remake, but I’m not going to lie, I’m really looking forward to this film.