The most startling aspects of David Fincher’s new version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” come at the beginning and the end. What comes in the middle is crisp, cold, well-crafted movie.
The beginning involves a loony credits sequence set to a new version of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” played against a montage of mannequins or robots or something (it might be kind of interesting, if you could see what it is). It’s a botch that almost throws the movie off kilter.
But if there’s anything the director of “Zodiac” and “The Social Network” knows, it’s, uh, kilter. And this adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s mega-selling novel is utterly controlled in its swift-moving progress.
If you read the novel, or saw the Swedish film version, you know the case begins with an ostracized Stockholm journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), getting hired to investigate a decades-old murder. The patriarch (Christopher Plummer) of a grandly wealthy (and unsavory) family wants to solve the disappearance of his niece, and installs Mikael on the Kennedy-like family compound to play sleuth.
The other major player is a computer hacker of near-mystical talents, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), whose hostile attitude comes from a lifetime of bad treatment at the hands of men. We see an example of that, in grueling fashion, as Lisbeth is exploited by her depraved parole officer.
A variety of plot strands weave together in a skillful way (Stephen Zaillian, the A-list writer who adapted “Moneyball,” did the script), although the actual resolution of the missing-girl story never becomes as urgent as the unfolding of Lisbeth’s personality.
Mara, perhaps best known for the electrifying opening scene of “The Social Network,” does beautifully with the role of Lisbeth. She captures the fury of the character, but that’s the easy part; what she conveys in tiny, almost subliminal ways is her wounded vulnerability.
Craig is relatively colorless next to her, but the film doesn’t give him much of a chance to be anything but occupy its central-observer character. Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright and Joely Richardson (whose resemblance to her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, becomes stronger as she gets older) supply professional work in key supporting roles.
When you think about David Fincher’s directing style, you might say he’s been waiting for an excuse for work in Scandinavia: All those frosty landscapes and IKEA products were just waiting to be visualized by his cool eye. The overall effect is more impressive than engaging—but having absorbed all three Swedish films based on Larsson’s literary trilogy already, I will confess to some deja vu on the subject.
And the ending? If memory serves, a couple of changes have been made to the ultimate explanation of things. That’s a pretty big deal for a cultural phenomenon that already has been absorbed by many, but movies can add new wrinkles to books, so fair enough.
I wish Fincher had made the explanation a little clearer, though: Two hours and forty minutes of movie, and I’m still not entirely sure what happened with the poor girl who went missing on that fateful day so many years ago.
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (3 stars)
The first U.S. adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling trilogy gets the mood and look of the story, in which a journalist (Daniel Craig) works on uncovering a decades-old murder case. David Fincher keeps the action moving at a brisk clip, and Rooney Mara is a standout at the damaged hacker, but the movie is a little airless in its approach.
Rated: R for violence, nudity, language.
Showing: Alderwood, Cinebarre, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe and Marysville.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
