Fine Performance From Rooney Mara In A Strangely Incoherent Movie

Rating: 3/10 (22 February 2012)

The highlight of this film is Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is an investigator who gets involved in what becomes a serial murder mystery from many years before. Lisbeth is a complex character. She's troubled and mysterious, deeply vulnerable and yet surprisingly strong at the same time; qualities all brought out effectively by her appearance (strange hair styles and multiple piercings) and by an often distant look about her - a sort of detachment perhaps quite believable for a character with her history. Mara captured the contradictions of the character perfectly. Although I have to admit that I wasn't that taken with the movie as a whole, I was drawn to Lisbeth; I cared about her. I hurt when she hurt. The scenes between Lisbeth and Nils (Yorick van Waginingen) - both those in which she was being abused and the scene in which she took her revenge (and even the brief later scene in the elevator) - were powerful and disturbing. I've not felt that attached to a character in a long while, so kudos to Mara for drawing out such a reaction - especially since, as I said, she managed to do it in a movie that just didn't appeal to me very much.
The overall story was not unlike the character of Lisbeth - strange and confusing and complex and mysterious, but on the whole it failed to connect with me in the way the character of Lisbeth did. And, as much as I was drawn to the character, part of the problem with the story was that so much of it revolved around Lisbeth. The rape/revenge scenes may have been powerful and disturbing, but they didn't really seem to connect that well with the main point of the movie, which was the search for the serial killer's identity, and the one victim of Harriet in particular. To me, it seemed almost as if director David Fincher realized that the story he was telling was almost totally lacking in coherence. That basic incoherence (or even unattractiveness) was well summed up by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Speaking with Mikael (Daniel Craig) - who he's asked to look into the disappearance of his niece Harriet many years before - he explains the bewildering nature of his relatives (a bunch consisting of some Nazis and neo-Nazis and some who won't speak to them because they're Nazis and neo-Nazis) and when Mikael tells him that he's having trouble keeping everything straight, Henrik responds, "Soon you'll know us all too well, with my apologies." A point for honesty I guess. There's little in this story or in its characters that's either pleasant or attractive so Fincher seems to have chosen to over-emphasize Lisbeth's troubles (the one strong part of the script) - the problem being that this one strong part of the script wasn't essential to the story. Very strange to me.
In any event, the movie really lost me right from the start with a bizarre opening sequences and musical score that lasted far, far too long, and it never really drew me consistently back in. Kudos to Rooney Mara for a fine performance, but the movie overall was quite lacking. (3/10)