Scandinavian thrills

Rating: 9/10 (20 March 2010)

It is a quite uncommon event, that a Swedish film should get so much attention pretty much anywhere, not just in Scandinavia or, outside its home regions, the art-house circuit (Bergman isn't exactly multiplex stuff). Of course, when the film in question is based on a best-selling novel, nay, the most profitable book in Northern Europe, it's a whole different thing: partly because of the unique circumstances surrounding its inception (the author was a journalist who wrote fiction just for fun and died shortly after submitting the final version of the manuscripts), Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy has shocked and enthralled readers all over the world, which explains why the adaptation of the first chapter, Men Who Hate Women (retitled The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in English-speaking countries), has become the most successful Swedish movie of all time. That, and the fact that it's a very good film.
Not surprisingly, the main character is, like the late author, an investigative reporter, a man in his late forties named Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). Sentenced to a six-month stint in prison for allegedly forging evidence against a powerful businessman he wrote about in the magazine Millennium (hence the trilogy's title), he still has the time to carry out an assignment handed to him by one Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube): to find out what happened on the day Vanger's niece, Harriet, disappeared. Dis she simply vanish, or was she murdered? As the plot thickens, Mikael receives unexpected help from Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a young hacker with a troubled past and continued problems with her legal status, more specifically her sleazy guardian.
In the transition from page to screen, some elements had to be abandoned, obviously: gone are the data on abused women that opened each section of the book (the major contribution of Larsson's journalistic side), as well as the sly references to past detective story staples (Blomkvist and Vanger mention Agatha Christie when discussing their investigation). In terms of plot, on the other hand, the adaptation process is worthy of L.A. Confidential: no unnecessary subplots (do we really need to see Mikael sleeping with half the women he encounters?) or irrelevant side characters, just Blomkvist and Salander, an odd investigative couple whose essence is best summed up by Mikael's line: "You know everything about me, and I don't know sh*t about you.". It's that kind of weird humor, spoken in plain, brutal Swedish, that gives the film its heart, along with a decent dose of mystery.
The Scandinavian landscape has its part in guaranteeing the story's success, too: like in the wonderful Let the Right One In, the cold, snowy environment provides the ideal backdrop for one of the most chilling (pun not intended) and grisly tales of murder ever committed to film. Staying true to the book's bleak core, the violence is depicted without many restrictions, especially in the central rape scene that justifies the original Swedish title and sets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo aside from the majority of Hollywood's sanitized thrillers.
In short, this is a riveting, rewarding experience. Needless to say, an American version is already in the works to please subtitle-weary moviegoers. It's not necessarily a bad idea (look at what Chris Nolan did with Insomnia, originally a Norwegian picture), but can there really be a Tinseltown actress brave - and good - enough to take over from the mesmerizing Noomi Rapace? Well, at least she still has two more films to steal before that happens...
8,5/10