Succeeds thanks to Mara's character and the atmosphere

Rating: 6/10 (17 October 2016)

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is an English-language movie from 2011, so it has its 5th anniversary this year. This one is a co-production between the United States, Norway and Sweden. The former comes through the impact of director David Fincher and Steven Zaillian, the man in charge of the screenplay. The Scandinavian impact is because of late writer Stieg Larsson who is the man came up with the novel that this film is based on. There was another purely Swedish film in the past starring Noomi Rapace as the title character, but because of the Hollywood impact this one here is considerably more famous. And also because of the current Bond, Daniel Craig, starring in it. It was also the breakthrough film for Rooney Mara, who worked with Fincher already on "The Social Network", and she got an Academy Award nomination for her turn of a tattooed hacker, who gets raped, but takes revenge and ultimately helps Craig's character in solving a pretty old criminal mystery. This mystery surrounds the characters of Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgård. Especially the latter plays a big part in here, which becomes even more crucial the longer the film runs. And "longer" is very true in this case as Fincher's take on the story lasts for more than 2.5 hours. I read that they planned on making a sequel (or more like the Swedish version), but so far it hasn't happened yet despite the movie being unusually successful for an American remake. It even won an Oscar for Best Film Editing.
About the movie itself, you certainly have to be interested in the genre and it also helps if you have read the book. Or you will appreciate it even more if you like Craig and Mara as they really have a lot of screen time here, one of them is always seen basically. That said, I still have to admit despite really loving Craig as Bond, I was a bit underwhelmed by him here. It is maybe partially to the performance and partially because of the way he was written. This film is clearly a showpiece for Rooney Mara and basically Rooney Mara only. I am just not too sure if she was really giving a very good performance or if it is about her costume and make-up that make the character so memorable, maybe the most memorable film character of 2011. There are some pretty disturbing scenes involving the main characters and I hinted at one earlier already, so this is not a film you may want to watch with your (small) children. Or with your parents, for that matter. But there are also fairly creative moments on some occasions. The movie lives a lot through its nice atmosphere that overall elevates the material and makes up for the not too big chemistry between Craig and Mara. But it's fine because they really don't have that many scenes together. At times, it almost felt as if I was watching two different movies in one. Anyway, all in all, the positive outweighs the negative and I give Fincher's version a thumbs up. But I would not consider it one of the year's best. It's good but not great. Worth checking out.