The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: Kicking Ass and Taking Names

I planned to watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo when it released on Christmas Day, but somehow other movies intervened and I only watched it last weekend. This was a grievous delay because this movie is amazing.

I was a huge fan of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy featuring intrepid Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, pierced, and brilliant hacker Lisbeth Salander. The books are nail-biting thrillers that feature villains who never seem to stop getting more evil and each chapter brings more horrors and delights. The Swedes have already filmed the entire trilogy, with Noomi Rapace playing Lisbeth and Michael Nyqvist playing Mikael. I only saw the first movie and it was great. However, the joy of watching this Hollywood version is that it has amped up the production value while still remaining insanely true to the books. In fact, as transformed as Noomi Rapace was in the characater of Lisbeth, Rooney Mara probably fits the bill even more as the scrawny yet fierce woman who spends the film wreaking vengeance upon her enemies and helping Blomkvist (played by the ever-marvelous Daniel Craig) find a "killer of women." 

I knew I would love this movie just from the opening credits which feature a series of dark fluid images set to Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross' pulse-pounding score, with Karen O's shrieking vocals thrown in for good measure. This is a David Fincher movie through and through and even if the subject matter wasn't so compelling, I'd have loved the movie for its visuals alone. The snow-covered Vanger estate will make you shiver and you just can't tear your eyes away from the screen as you watch Rooney Mara get even with her enemies. The brutality of the books is not sugarcoated in any way and some scenes will certainly make your stomach turn. But what surprised me the most was how Fincher still managed to inject plenty of humor into this film. The audience I watched this movie with was particularly keen to laugh uproariously at every one-liner, perhaps due to their need for catharsis after all the rape and dismemberment. 

The actors are all pitch-perfect in their portrayals of these well-known characters and the film proceeds at a fierce pace that keeps the adrenaline going. The only jarring note is that Craig does not seem to have a Swedish accent at all. Everyone else pulls off some semblance of an accent (Mara probably does it best) but Craig sounds completely English, which led me to wonder if he ever does accents in his other films. I think he just clenches his jaw, enunciates less, and hopes that he doesn't sound too English. But despite this minor blip, he is a fine Blomkvist and is the ideal complement to Mara's Salander. 

I am shocked that the movie hasn't received more attention for awards this year. Rooney Mara is deservedly being lauded for her performance and got a Golden Globe nomination (though unbelievably she wasn't nominated for the SAG or Critics Choice Awards), but the movie itself ought to be recognized as the masterpiece that it is. The American Film Institute and National Board of Review have listed the movie in their Top 10 Films of the year, but I fail to understand why it didn't get nominated at the Golden Globes or Critics Choice Awards. Hopefully the Oscars will rectify this oversight, because David Fincher should be receiving Best Director nominations all over the place and the film needs to get some major love. It hasn't performed too well at the box office, but this was a hard movie to sell as Christmas fare and I can only hope that more people go to see it now that the holidays are done with. 

The day after watching this film, I woke up with a craving for coffee and open sandwiches and I am still suffering from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo withdrawal. For now I'll console myself with the Swedish films, but I cannot wait for Fincher, Mara, and Craig to return and finish up the trilogy in style.