Seeing as this is the first proper post on my new film blog, I realise people will probably assume that every film I review will be of the same calibre as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I feel I should immediately warn you that this is not the case. This is perhaps the second foreign-language film I've ever watched and I spent much of last night rockin' out to the soundtrack of The Swan Princess. I am not a film snob nor particularly mature, so you have been warned.
Anyway, moving on to the matter at hand. This film was ace. With films that have been adapted from books I like, I have to admit that I always expect disappointment, and my expectations are usually met. I was particularly dubious this time since I had finished reading the book perhaps four hours before watching the film, so the plot, characters and details of the story were still very fresh in my mind.
The basic story, if you don't know, centres around a recently disgraced journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, who is hired by the CEO of a massive family company - the Vanger Corporation - to discover which member of the family murdered Harriet Vanger, who disappeared nearly forty years ago. The 'girl with the dragon tattoo' is Lisbeth Salander, a personal investigator with deep secrets, a dark past and (to put it mildly) a no-nonsense attitude. Salander and Blomkvist 'team up' to uncover the shocking skeletons in this family's deep and many-layered closet, a task which becomes increasingly dangerous with the discovery of a long-hidden serial killer and the actions of someone determined to keep the family secrets, at any cost.
The film handled the book-to-screen adaptation wonderfully; they stuck to the original story very closely, but with a couple of minor simplifications and modifications that I actually found improvements. They also cut a lot of the - if you'll pardon my Northern attitude - extraneous crap, which was the only thing preventing me from loving the book. The number of times Blomkvist 'puts on coffee', one would assume he has some sort of caffeine problem.
Anyway, the film also tackled some pretty horrifying scenes with a tastefulness and subtlety that made it bearable to watch, whilst being explicit and shocking enough to have the desired effect (namely, me hiding behind a pillow). It also had possibly my favourite post-sex moment ever when Salander, having effectively jumped Blomkvist, casually, er, dismounts, picks up her clothes and breezes out of the room with a cheery 'Goodnight.' The violence was brutal, but I'm not going to say it wasn't needed - I hate blood and gore for the sake of blood and gore, but The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is partly about the mistreatment of women, and to get the message across the violence kind of had to be vicious.
In terms of acting, Michael Nyquist (Blomkvist) was very good, but paled in comparison to Noomi Rapace. Salander was described so vividly in the book I thought it would be impossible for an actress to do her justice (particularly when I saw a picture of a post-makeup Rapace), but - frankly - wow. This film is worth watching purely to bask in awe of Rapace's performance, and it's a crime that she wasn't nominated for more awards. Anyway I think I've gone on for long enough.
Basic summary: fast-paced, clever and shocking thriller that grips you from start to finish, does the book justice and features an extraordinarily good performance from Noomi Rapace.
Rating: * * * * (Very good)
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