Dark but compelling

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2010)

This is the Swedish-language film adaptation of the first of the three so-called "Millenium" crime novels (titled "Men Who Hate Women" in the original) penned by the Swedish crusading journalist Stieg Larsson and published only after his premature death to astonishing worldwide acclaim. The eponymous young anti-heroine is the tattooed and pierced ace hacker and bike rider Lisbeth Salander, brilliantly portrayed by Noomi Rapace, who becomes the accomplice of middle-aged, disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). Together they work on a crime four decades old: the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from a gathering on the island owned by the powerful and dysfunctional Vanger family.
This is a much colder and darker Sweden - both physically and metaphorically - than the open and tolerant society that we usually imagine and often makes for uncomfortable viewing, especially in scenes of sexual violence. Yet we have no choice but to watch because the narrative is so compelling and twisting and we want to know how the unlikely pairing of Mikael and Lisbeth will work out almost as much as we need to discover who is behind all the sadistic murders and how retribution will be delivered.