Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
A film this good could have never been made in America, It has nuance,
suspense and true moments of surprise that most of the American product
seems incapable of achieving. It’s cast with believable looking people,
not glamour gods and the story unfolds in a at first leisurely manner
but when it gains steam, look out.
The story behind the book the film is based on is a very interesting one
as well, a Swedish journalist, Stieg Larsson writes three books in his
spare time, never even sending them to a publisher for consideration
until shortly before his death. When he dies young of a massive heart
attack at the age of 50, the text is published and the Millennium
Trilogy go on to become huge best sellers.
The story in this film, which is part one of the trilogy, revolves
around the disappearance on a female member of a very rich family over
forty years earlier. The family’s patriarch hires a reporter, Mikael
Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) who has recently been falsely convicted of
fraud to investigate before he has to serve his short prison term but
not before he has had him investigated by Lisbeth Salander (Noomi
Rapace). In the course of this investigation, the two join forces and
together they expose many deep dark family secrets.
The film has a pace that slowly draws you in but then richly rewards you
with stunning revelation after revelation and a series of endings that
are completely satisfying without the usual American film feel good
mentality. My only real critique is one aimed at any film with sub-titles, while reading the text on-screen; you do miss some of the
performer’s minute gestures.
A few final notes, the trilogy has already been made into three Swedish
films and I eagerly await their release in Australia but was a bit
disturbed to find that there is already an American version of the first
film in development. Let’s hope it comes close to the adaptation
success of the film, Brothers but I’m not holding my breath.
Rob Hudson www.dragontattoofilm.com
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