The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Swedish film Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based on the best selling novel by Stieg Larsson. It follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) as he is hired by an aging industrialist tycoon to uncover a 40 year old mystery of a missing girl, with the help of ultra cool computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace).
I was actually quite surprised at how much details were still evident from the novel. Naturally all subplots were taken out, and the focus was purely on finding out what happened to the missing girl. The storytelling was beautiful in the fact that they made sure that they visually showed the information through old film footage, photos and the odd flashback. This meant that the film wasn’t bulked down in dialogue, simply telling the audience what had happened instead of showing.
The changes that they did make with the original plot points from the novel, while only minor, I felt actually worked a lot better than the book, as it helped build a stronger, three dimensional character for Salander while giving the audience a sneak pick at the mystery that will be explored in the following film.
The film is just as violent as the book creating a very disturbing atmosphere, befitting to the themes explored, while creating a real sense of how fucked up people can be.
I really love the shared themes that are created between Salander’s horrific events in the beginning of the film and the details of the eventual uncovered mystery. This unity of themes helps to create a more impactful and meaningful film.
I love watching foreign films, especially when you get completely enthralled din the storytelling and forget that you have been reading subtitles for the past two hours. I recommend this film to anyone that loved the novel and to people that may have considered reading it but never got around to it. The whole trilogy has been made into three Swedish films, with a Hollywood remake due to come out next year, directed by David Fincher starring Daniel Craig. Hears hoping that they don't fuck it up.