Good Adaptation of Larsson's First Millennium Novel

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2012)

I remember this movie getting a lot of buzz when I was in college. A lot of other students were chatting about it, but I never really looked into it until David Fincher (one of my favorite directors) chose to adapt the book for American audiences in 2011. So yeah, I was a little late to the party when it came to appreciating Stieg Larsson's Millennium series. It was Fincher's adaptation that grabbed my attention and I've since read all three books and watched the extended additions of each of the three Swedish films. So now that I've had enough exposure to the series to form a reasonable opinion, let me say that I enjoyed the Swedish version directed by Niels Arden Oplev, but not as much as I enjoyed Fincher's version. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is a complex story revolving around the forty-year-old unsolved disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl. Controversial journalist Mikael Blomkvist has been disgraced in the courts when he's found guilty of libel against a billionaire industrialist. Facing a sentence of three months in prison, he's sought out by the wealthy Henrik Vanger to solve the mysterious disappearance of his niece Harriet in 1966. She disappeared without a trace and previous investigations have yielded nothing: no body, no evidence of foul play. Just gone. Henrik believes a member of his unsavory family murdered Harriet, and he hopes Mikael can find the answer he's been waiting for. But Mikael will need help, and he turns to antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, a woman with a mountain of her own issues, to solve the case.
Having read the book before I watched the Swedish film, I know that a lot was left on due to time constraints. The book is just too detailed to fit everything into a feature film of reasonable length (and this movie already pushes the boundary with a total three hour runtime). The exhaustive detail behind the Wennerström affair, Blomkvist's brief tryst with Cecilia Vanger, further details about his investigation into Harriet's disappearance, and more were removed to trim the story down to a manageable length. I'm cool with that. I understand, and the movie still manages to put together a taut mystery that will keep you engaged until the final reveal. If you haven't seen the movies or read the books, be forewarned: these are slow-burning story lines. Both the book and the movie move pretty slowly at times and can take a while to get moving, but grab hold of you when they do. Mikael's investigation involves a lot of searching through archives and old photos so it doesn't always make for the most interesting cinema material. Fortunately, just when your interest threatens to weaken, the movie throws out a curve-ball to thrust you back into the story. It's a rich story that does weaken a bit when adapted for the screen, so I'd certainly recommend anyone who enjoyed the movie to seek out the book as well if for no other reason than to fill out the rest of the story.
I'm not going to bother comparing the primary cast members here to those in Fincher's film because they're separate entities and I felt both did admirable jobs in filling the roles from the novel. Noomi Rapace is Lisbeth Salander, the title heroine of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. She does a pretty awesome job bringing Lisbeth's her awkward antisocial personality to life, but there were times when it didn't feel legitimate. It wasn't enough to rip me out of a scene or anything, just a minor nitpick and a minor complaint. In general, I thought Rapace did a fine job embracing this character and I she was a great choice for the trilogy. The same can be said for Michael Nyqvist as Blomkvist. I had a hard time accepting him at first because I had come to envision Daniel Craig in the role, but he grew on me fast and I've come to believe he was an excellent choice. I'd even go so far as to say he was a better fit for the character than Craig in terms of style and personality. The two of them have great chemistry between them that helps their odd relationship work. The two of them were inspired casting on the film's part and establish themselves solidly in the characters they would then portray in two more movies. This deliberately-paced foreign film may not appeal to mass American audiences, but those of us who were willing to give it a chance are in for a good film.