The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellen Skarsgard, Robin Wright)—Stieg Larsson’s runaway bestseller has now been made into a two movies, first in Swedish and now in English. For those who read the book, you will enjoy both films since the screenplays are true to the novel. Naturally, it is much easier to see the English language version if you are only going to see one since you can spare yourself well over two hours of reading subtitles. I also think the current version is better but I am sure that my foreign film-buff friends will disagree. Directed by two-time Academy Award-nominated director David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a tense thriller about a disgraced journalist who tracks down a killer many years after the murder. A murder mystery, Dragon Tattoo revolves around the chemistry between the two primary characters, magazine journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and enterprising investigator Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). But these two don’t cross paths until about halfway through the movie.
The first half of the film is devoted to their unrelated stories. Blomkvist ran an investigative piece accusing a corporate CEO of malfeasance and ended up in court where he lost a libel suit. Discredited, Blomkvist decides to fire himself. Actually, he tells his paramour and boss, Erika Berger (Robin Wright), that she has to fire him for the sake of magazine. Not sure what he is going to do next other than take time off, Blomkvist is suddenly approached by a lawyer representing industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Vanger wants the journalist to look into a decades-old disappearance and death of his beloved niece. Why now and why him are the natural questions but these are never really explored in the film. Holed up in a cottage on the Vanger estate, Blomkvist looks into the dysfunctional family with Nazi connections and no love lost among the members, almost all of whom live on the same island located close to the arctic.
Meanwhile, Salander – replete with piercings all over her face and spiky hair – is an anti-social, bisexual, self-described crazy who is a crack investigator and computer hacker who is a ward of state for trying to kill her father as a juvenile. She is incredibly good at her job. Her initial connection to Blomkvist stems from being asked by the Vanger lawyer to do the background check on the journalist. When they finally connect, Salander helps Blomkvist, all the while chain smoking and riding her motorcycle. The two hook up in other ways, too, in some graphic scenes (but not as graphic as some other scenes in the film). Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo (among others), is one of the most complex and intriguing characters both in literature and in film. Rooney Mara’s portrayal has received rave reviews and a Golden Globe nomination (the Oscar nomination is coming). The 26-year-old had a feature role as lawyer Erica Albright in Fincher’s The Social Network (you’ll remember the scene with Mark Zuckerberg/Jesse Eisenberg near the end of the movie) but she completely transformed her looks for this film. She has already committed to the next two movies in the trilogy, too. (For my fellow Steelers fans, her name comes from the fact that she is the granddaughter of Steelers’ founder Art Rooney as well as New York Jets’ patriarch Wellington Mara. She is also the sister of actress Kate Mara from We Are Marshall and Transiberian.)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a first-rate film. It is far superior to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which opened about the same time but plods along without engaging the audience. For those who have read the book, the movie is a must-see. For those who haven’t, it will not reduce your enjoyment of the film (unlike Spy where you will be totally lost). I’m not sure how many Oscar nominations this film will get but there will be at least one (Mara) and maybe as many as four (Mara, Plummer, Fincher, and the film).