The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(2009) review

SWEDES RETURN INTELLIGENCE TO THE MOVIES

It is so hard to find a decent suspense thriller nowadays. Once the thriller is over, you realize all the film did was spook you a little. Hollywood tends to do this nowadays with these so called thrillers that are coughed out by the week. Thank the gods there are still people who know how to make a thriller that thrills and can handle to make it into one hell of a film, with a faultless plot, characters to die for and an ending that begs for a follow-up. One such film would be Neils Arden Oplev’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, which I just loved beyond words! Swedish filmmakers should educate Hollywood a lesson or two about movies. In 2008 Swedish horror “Let the Right One In” wowed audiences worldwide and now comes “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” with the same powerful outcome. Do I need to say more?

The film is about a reporter Mikael Blomqvist (Nyqvist) who is charged of libel to one of Sweden’s greatest companies because he published an article in the Millennium magazine which Mikael couldn’t verify afterwards. Before he serves his short jail sentence he decides to stay underground. During the Christmas period Mikael gets a call from Henry Vanger, who is an old family friend asking him to come visit.  Henry wants Mikael to investigate the disappearance of Harriet Vanger (Fröling) who mysteriously vanished 40 years ago, he wants to discover the truth before he dies of old age. Mikael accepts the offer. Henry considers Mikael the right man for the job because of the Intel he has collected on his private life from highly intelligent, highly pierced, and tattooed computer hacker Lisabeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has managed to build up. She learns the case that he’s working on. Salander begins sending Bloomkvist cryptic emails. Somehow he manages to find Salander’s IP address and goes to visit her to ask her to stop hacking into his computer, but instead they end up working as partners. Soon they discover that what seems to be a single missing person case is in fact something a lot more disturbing.

 The star of the film is Lisabeth Salander the peculiar, antisocial, shy, abused, and very early-developed young girl perfectly played by Noomi Rapace. Salander is seeking judgment or vengeance in her own way. She does not trust anybody apart from Plague a fellow hacker and Blomqvist. From the very first moments in the film, I was right away struck by the outstanding performance of Noomi Rapace. From an interview with Rapace I was surprised to see how much physical transformation she had done for the role. With the beautiful feminine look to being very masculine and Gothic look. Next to her remarkable physical change, Rapace gives a spectacular performance by always making sure that Lisabeth in no way turns into a “woe is me” type of character, but instead someone who is damaged yet firm on ruining the people that tried to destroy her. Whilst Rapace is justifiably praised, I consider the performance of Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist is incredibly under rated. Nyqvist does a fabulous job at showing Mikael not looking down on Salander.

 Remember Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of the Lambs”? It was a faultless thriller. Remember what made the mystery and suspense reach out to us? It was the perfect leading performances of Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, that‘s what. It’s the same exact case with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. The suspense keeps you on the edge of your seat as the truth is being unraveled on the screen. We quickly find ourselves aggressively rooting for Mikael and Lisabeth, really caring about what happens to them and believing every solitary thing that happens on the screen, mostly because of Rapace’s wonderful performance. The film’s focus is primarily on Mikael, but when Lisabeth is on screen she steals the scene.

The story is tremendously well done too. It is written by the astonishingly talented promising late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson who hastily died in 2004 from a heart attack at only age 50. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is the first part of his Millennium trilogy which he handled to complete before his death. Sexual violence against women was his theme in this Millennium trilogy of the bestselling novels.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an extraordinary crime and punishment film with captivating characters that have complex human dimensions, they are almost real, and it feels like they could be your friends or neighbors or even co-workers. The film is quite excellent; it excels with brilliance that I rarely see in thrillers nowadays. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a movie experience I’ll remember for quite a long time. I highly recommend it!!! But this film is only for mature audiences. 5 out of 5

A Hollywood version remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo directed by David Fincher is coming out Christmas 2011. I can’t think of any basis to remake this astonishingly executed and perfectly acted Swedish produced film. Hollywood just loves remaking the best films from around the world and they always end up demolishing them. I can’t live with the idea of Fincher destroying Lisabeth Salader.  I would recommend Hollywood to cast Noomi Rapace instead of Rooney Mara.