The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Sweden. R. 152 min.
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“A disgraced middle-aged journalist teams up with a pierced, tattooed and aggressively antisocial computer hacker to investigate a disappearance and a dark family secret — the late Stieg Larsson put a 21st-century spin on the classic crime thriller and the result was one of the publishing success stories of the decade.”
“It’s a book that poses a formidable challenge to film-makers. How to cram a densely plotted 500-page crime thriller that spans decades, orchestrates scores of morally dubious characters and encompasses corporate malpractice on a global scale into one feature film? Add to this that fact that the book has sold more than 10 million copies and has the sort of feverish fanbase that would go for the jugular at the slightest hint of a narrative inconsistency or casting anomaly.
It’s to their credit, then, that the director Niels Arden Oplev and screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, employing an approach that approximates hurtling through the story on an out-of-control freight train, have succeeded in making a breathless, edgy, entertainingly pulpy genre picture. The adaptation stays true to the spirit of the novel but is not too cowed by the book’s popularity to spice up the story with the occasional high-tension setpiece.
The film fairly rattles through the story’s set-up, covering the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist’s messy court case and subsequent public humiliation, and the bisexual hacker Lisbeth Salander’s woes with her court appointed guardian. The only time the film lingers, with a sticky-fingered salaciousness that is rather off-putting, is during a violent sexual attack on Salander. It’s one off-key note that jars in an otherwise pretty much pitch-perfect adaptation.
The film’s main asset is unquestionably Noomi Rapace, playing Lisbeth Salander. She’s a sullen, smoky-eyed goth who looks like a cross between Violet from The Incredibles and the contents of a hardware shop. The only thing steelier than her facial piercings is her glare. She’s a fascinating, enigmatic creation, a loner motivated by cold rage, disconnected sex and rifling through other people’s electronic secrets.
It’s hard to imagine an actress better suited to bringing Larsson’s abrasive, strong-minded protagonist to life. Rapace is as thin as a knife slash and attacks the role as if it challenged her to a fight. In contrast, Michael Nyqvist is suitably crumpled and careworn as the jaded idealist Blomkvist. It’s not a showy, ego-led performance, more a solid foundation of normality that counterpoints Rapace’s curious, almost reptilian sex appeal.
An American version of the book is currently in pre-production and, with Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List) writing it, promises to be a quality project. Still, the melancholy grey-blue half-light of northern Sweden in winter and the scary savagery of Rapace are two elements that will inevitably be missing in any Hollywood remake.” (The Times Online)