The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review
By: Joshua “Soon you’ll know us all too well, with my apologies” Richey
Nearly every review for David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo compare it to either Steig Larsson’s award winning novel or Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 film by the same name. That won’t be the case here. I’ve not read Larsson’s books nor have I watched Oplev’s highly praised film adaption. I am, however, a huge fan of all things David Fincher and love nearly everything that the man is involved with. There was a time, shortly after Fincher signed on to make the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that I attempted to read the Wikipedia page just to see what all the fuss was about. In doing so, I quickly became overwhelmed with trying to keep track of who’s who and ultimately abandoned it. So this review is coming to you from someone that is experiencing the tale of Lisbeth Salander for the very first time.
Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is a successful journalist that has found himself in a tough predicament after an article that he’s written on Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, a billionaire industrialist, for his magazine, Millennium, leads to a libel lawsuit. The suit results in Mikael’s reputation being tarnished, him being forced out at Millennium, and the loss of his life’s savings. As Mikael is at rock bottom, he’s approached by Henrik Vanger (Julian Sands), the elderly former chairman of the Vanger Corporation. As one of the finest investigative journalists there is, Henrik offers Mikael a large sum of money and the opportunity to get retribution for the Wennerstrom fiasco if he can assist him in solving the murder of his niece, Harriet, whose death has been a mystery for over 40 years. Assisting Mikael in his quest to sort through lies and dark Vanger family secrets is Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a young anti-social computer hacker that has been deemed legally incompetent by the government. Together, Salander and Blomvist search for the truth about what happened to Harriet and discover that there’s a whole lot more to the Vanger family than they could have imagined.
Like many of Fincher’s previous works, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a film that is nearly unblemished. From the opening credits to the final credits, what you get with any David Fincher movie is a film that is well written, beautifully shot, paced just right, and accompanied by an unbelievable score. Just as that was the case with films like Seven, Fight Club and The Social Network, it’s also true here. Fincher’s ominous presentation is ideal for thrillers, which, at its core, is what The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is. It’s a film that takes you by the hand, sets everything up for you, lets you get to know everyone and their situations, and then, BOOM!, it’s two hours edge-of-your-seat suspense. And while I’m not familiar with the source material, I can’t help but to give a lot of credit to the Steven Zaillian, the film’s screenwriter, for taking a lot of content and somehow writing a very good film without it becoming overwhelming. For the first half of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it’s almost like three entirely different films. Over here you have Mikael dealing with the fallout of the Wennerstrom’s libel lawsuit and trying to stay strong for his daughter and editor/lover; over here you have Mikael trying to dig up clues on what happened to Harriet on that beautiful day 40 years ago; and then finally you have Lisbeth and her struggles with her court appointed guardian. For the first half of the movie, we switch back and forth between these three storylines, but all three are so compelling that we hardly notice. Then, suddenly, the three storylines begin to thread into one another and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.
Top notch acting from Craig and Mara; another extraordinary soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross; and David Fincher continuing to prove that he can do no wrong…whether you’ve read the books or not, you should most definitely go out of your way to check out The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – just don’t be like me and go see it at midnight. (It’s a long movie!)
We give The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 4 painful dildo kicks to the ass out of 5.
