Written by Taylor Baker

88/100

“May I kill him?”

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara)

Fincher’s films essentially break down into two camps for me. Movies where he read a story he’s really excited to share with me using a camera. And smothering visions of the malcontent of man and his various sins. Then illustrating how a redeemable man or woman can deliver us from this event(s) through virtuousness although these heroes are not without sins themselves. (Besides The Social Network, that’s just a movie about us being fucked.) This film however straddles both those lines.

His depictions of sexuality though cursory so far are distinct. It is often nonjudgmental, all judgement of the sexual behavior of characters comes from the characters in the piece, he doesn’t shoot even the most grotesque rape scene to be deliberately upsetting which would have been easy to do. He let’s the content be disturbing but doesn’t frame it to be such. The second time we see that scene, through the footage Lisbeth recorded-it’s taken on the characteristic of her perspective and we are revolted and endorsing her revenge on him. The apartment subsequently becomes a mess of blood and ink. A visual reference for the action of pouring out the ugliness inside the man/men.

The only issue I can find in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the rushed pacing it has in the end of the film. Not only as we discover the truth of who the killer is. But as we tie things up with the elder Vanger. The timing of the Swedish series Millennium(Which serves as both the title of the novel trilogy and Blomkvist’s Magazine) handles this much more eloquently and accentuates the strengths that limited series adaptations can have over stand alone film entries. This doesn’t interfere with the quality of the film that drastically though, and if this is your only exposure to the story you may never notice it.

Highly Recommended.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trailer