Darkly engrossing and electrifying

Rating: 9/10 (6 December 2016)

David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an American remake of the Swedish film of the same name, which has gained a considerable cult following over the course of three movies. While I have not yet seen the original, I can safely say that Fincher's adaption is an immensely thrilling and darkly seductive shock to the senses.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is certainly not for everyone. While the same can be said for mostly all of Fincher's other films, Girl features a very dark and bleak story paired with a screenplay that never hesitates to show us the brutally twisted details. While what I am explaining does sound exhausting and nihilistic, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is so beautifully shot, meticulously detailed and excellently acted that it is hard not to feel strangely addicted to it's twisted subject matter.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo features an incredibly talented cast including Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer and Robin Wright. While Plummer's and Wright's performances are quite impressive, the spotlight is focused on our two main characters played by Craig and Mara. Daniel Craig's performance is really just great because he does an excellent job of showing us that he isn't James Bond in this film. He appears vulnerable and increasingly paranoid as the film progresses, and Craig even took it upon himself to gain quite a bit of weight to even further accentuate his character's normality. While Craig does a great job convincing us of his weaknesses, Rooney Mara simply owns this film by doing the complete opposite. Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander is one of the most memorable and intriguing female characters of modern cinema and remains one of my favorite movie characters of all time.
Rooney Mara's portrayal of the young and eccentric reporter is absolutely spellbinding. Mara completely gave herself over to the role, getting real piercings, bleaching eyebrows and extreme hairstyles. She went through such an amazing transformation that I couldn't recognize her as an actress, further adding to the depth and realism of this character. The way she delivers every line and performs even the slightest actions is utterly mesmerizing. Her mannerism is just simply so cool, for lack of a better word. She does what she wants and will back you up completely if you're on her side, and while it can be a stretch to say she is a "role model", her independence and ability to stand up for herself is admirable.
Along with excellent characters, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo revolves around a darkly intriguing mystery. Sadly, the depth of this mystery is never quite realized. I expected this mystery to become a labyrinth of motives and clever clues, but the surface of possibilities is barely broken as the "clues" used to solve the case are shockingly simple and frankly not that interesting. I really wanted to get involved with the case and it's sickly subject matter, but I was having difficulty trying to care as our characters so easily peeled back layer after layer of this seemingly "unsolvable" mystery. Despite this, the location in which our story takes place is absolutely perfect. Reminiscent to something out of an old mystery novel, our story takes place on a secluded island who's only inhabitants are all related. As well as looking visually gorgeous with snow lightly blanketed over the rustic mansions, the environment is incredibly effective at creating tension. We are placed in a scenario where literally no one can be trusted and are forced onto an island with them. There is almost always a constant feeling of unease that only becomes greater as we are exposed to Craig's increasing paranoia. We feel just as trapped as he does and as certain events unfold in the story, we desperately want out.
One issue that I had with Girl is the final 20 minutes. By this point, our mystery is solved and Lisbeth is handling some personal business for the benefit of herself and Mikael. While I did enjoy this part and it's sub-plot as a whole, how disjointed this sequence felt did become a slight distraction. I respect that Fincher used this sub-plot to develop Lisbeth further as a character and while it did give us some insight on her capabilities as a complete badass, it ultimately felt kind of rushed and didn't fit in with the rest of the film.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could have been a perfect film had it realized and fully developed it's mystery plot and cleaned up the last 20 minutes a bit. Despite these issues, Girl is still an excellent film from masterful David Fincher. It's haunting beauty, unsettling tone, tightly written dialogue and disturbing subject matter paints a bleak, yet intriguing picture. All of Fincher's trademarks and the incredible talent of the cast comes together to form a completely addictive and darkly seductive product. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo showed me things that I may have not wanted to see but I still found it strangely hard to look away.