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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Like the Stieg Larsson novel on which it is based, this tight thriller puts a new spin on the classic moves of an old-fashioned mystery story. For decades, someone has been sending aging industrialist Henrik Vanger a pressed flower every year on his birthday, a gift that taunts him because the tradition was started by his niece, who mysteriously disappeared in 1965. Vanger hires disgraced business journalist Mikael (Nyqvist) to take one last look at the case. Edgy hacker Lisbeth (Rapace), the tattooed and multiply pierced girl of the title, becomes Mikael’s partner in research. Of course, their investigation takes them into an ever-darkening world of the past, full of Swedish fascists and possibly a serial killer who has gone on killing undetected for decades. The darkness of the past is matched by equally awful things in the present.
Screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg have trimmed the story judiciously without losing the sense of sprawl and complexity, and Oplev knows how to modulate the pace over the longish running time. Like the novel, the film keeps you thoroughly engaged even after the case has been solved and most movies would be rolling the credits. Oplev is also helped along by Jacob Groth’s excellent score, which enhances without overwhelming the action. Nyqvist and Rapace are both excellent, though the film pushes their romance a bit too hard, missing the book’s more open attitude to sex. The ending also feels a bit too optimistic; one of the twists Larsson’s novel puts on the mystery conventions is the insistently pessimistic worldview. But these are small quibbles with a very entertaining movie.
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