WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS
This is a comparison of the book – not the foreign film – so I won’t talk about how much better David Fincher’s version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is compared to the latter. The overall look of the film is awesome. Even at two hours and 40 minutes, it’s still fast-paced and entertaining every step of the way. The dark look adds to the ominous foreshadowing – the scene driving up to the mansion is reminiscent of The Shining. Flashbacks throughout the film paint a vivid picture, helping to understand the complexity of the story. The score is crazy intense, but at times made me think of The Social Network. Dragon Tattoo is phenomenal: most importantly, the characters are on point – beginning with Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). Craig is strong yet vulnerable, and sexy for an older man. But Mara is who makes the movie. She’s exceptional, adding her own uniqueness to the role. The two have great chemistry and the first film plants the seed for the beginning stages of their relationship – whatever that may be – friends, colleagues, lovers. He gets her, and she gets him.
Mostly impressive are the relationships – the other major one between Blomkvist and Erika Berger, player by Robin Wright. She is perfect in the role as a respectable businesswoman who is sexy but doesn’t try to be sexy. The banter she and Mikael have back and forth is quick and sharp like they already know what the other person is going to say. Christopher Plummer plays a great Henrik Vanger. Martin Vanger is a tougher role, and Stellan Skarsgard does an impressive job with it. It’s somewhat difficult to determine if Martin is completely likable knowing he’s the killer, but still, he’s charming as hell and makes it clear throughout the movie that he wants to help Blomkvist. Dragan Armansky is probably the only character that was a little strangely cast. I pictured him as an older man with gray-ing hair. He’s much younger in the film and with dark brown hair. Still, I liked him.
The rape scene. It’s what everyone is talking about. With good reason. I had heard about it, and obviously read about it, preparing myself for it. It’s bad: not that it was worse than I thought, but still, very difficult to watch. It’s so graphic, but appropriate. When the scene ended I realized I had been holding my breath. There are a few changes in the story. One big one, that I kind of have a problem with, is Anita Vanger. In the book, Anita helps Harriet flee, yes, but Harriet goes to Australia. She takes Anita’s first name and marries a man to take his last name. Anita didn’t die. Anita is in London and Harriet is in Australia. In the film, Anita died in a car accident and Harriet “pretends” to be Anita. That makes no sense. You can’t become another person and not be noticed. More importantly, her family knew Anita was in London, but never checked on her? If they did, they’d realize it wasn’t Anita at all; it was Harriet. That’s too far fetched for me. Really, my only issue.
There were also some things added to the film that weren’t in the book that I liked. It was only in two scenes that Mara did it, but it didn’t go unnoticed: she walks into Holger Palmgren’s place, and later Mikael’s place. Both times she opens the door and says, “ Heyhey.” It’s her hello, but a nice hello. I liked it. Makes me wonder if that was her idea or Fincher’s. Can’t not talk about that cat – he’s in the book, but the affinity for the cat is much stronger in the movie. I laughed at most of their scenes together. Towards the end of the film, Mikael has figured out that Martin is the killer and he goes to his place. He wanders around, sneaks in, grabs a knife, and can’t really decide what to do. Martin pulls into the driveway and he somewhat panics, trying to sneak out. Martin suddenly sees him and invites him in. In the book, Mikael heads to Martin with clues and more than an inkling, but he doesn’t know for sure. When he gets there, he does sneak around the house, but he’s greeted by Martin and invites him in straightaway. The movie is much more suspenseful. Love that.
Later, Mikael is down in the basement and Lisbeth comes to save him. She asks him about Martin, “May I kill him?” In the book, she asks nothing: just runs out after Martin. For some reason, I got chills when she asked Mikael if it was OK to kill Martin. When Lisbeth chases after Martin, she runs him off the road and his car catches fire and explodes. In the book, they end up on a busy road and Martin crosses over into oncoming traffic to hit a truck straight on – his own doing. There are two changes that I’m not completely sure how I feel about yet. Both are at the end of the film. First, when Mikael is tied up in the basement. He has completely submitted and doesn’t speak to Martin. He just kind of holds on. In the book, he stays calm and tries to keep Martin talking. The longer he keeps him talking, the longer he stays alive. He is scared to death and thinks he is about to die, but he plays it cool, even asking Martin for a cigarette when Martin lights one up. It’s part of Mikael’s charm to play it cool at all times. He becomes disgusted when Martin speaks of all the girls he’s had down in the basement, but says nothing. I think that is more the point in the film. Mikael doesn’t want to hear what Martin has to say, but Martin tells him anyway. I get it.
The other is when Lisbeth buys Mikael a ridiculously nice jacket as a Christmas present and throws it in the trash after she sees him with Erika. None of this happens in the book. At this point in the relationship, Lisbeth wouldn’t even think to give Mikael anything, which means she’s a little more vulnerable in the film. It does show that she finally started to let someone in, only to be disappointed by him, and that is something she’s dealt with her whole life: any time she let someone in they would hurt her. We don’t learn this until much later in the series, so Fincher is just getting to the point.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a huge undertaking to turn into a movie, and Fincher does an amazing job with it, squeezing 560 pages into two hours and 40 minutes. It’s a character-driven story and the actors nailed it. The story is on point and the film moves along at a fast pace – as it should. Anyone who has read the book will be thrilled with the conversion.
Book-to-Movie rating 9/10