The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Sweden’s Dän Brøwn
Even though I’m a couple weeks late on this, I decided to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because 1) I’ve seen the Swedish version, and 2) the only other options were a movie about a horse who most likely dies in a weep-inducing fashion or We Bought a Zoo!
Even though I’m a couple weeks late on this, I decided to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because 1) I’ve seen the Swedish version, and 2) the only other options were a movie about a horse who most likely dies in a weep-inducing fashion or We Bought a Zoo!
So, off I went to the movies by myself. I’ve only ever seen two movies in the theatre solo: Eyes Wide Shut and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Both times I’ve felt pretty awkward, but not as awkward as I would have felt taking someone there on a first date.1
Dragon Tattoo is the first part of Swedish author Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium series (a trilogy).2 The series follows Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara)–a goth computer security expert in her early/mid twenties–and Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig)–a middle-aged investigative journalist–as they solve mysteries and endure some heinous violence.
The movie starts with Blomkvist losing a libel trial to one of Sweden’s rich and powerful business tycoons. His future with both the magazine he works for and the boss he sleeps with is thrown into question. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander is hired by Henrik Vanger–the patriarch of one of Sweden’s oldest families–to conduct an indepth, less-than-legal background check on Blomkvist. She’s on call with a security firm as a “hacker”–which you know because she uses Terminal.app on her MacBook. She even writes some SQL!3
As Blomkvist awaits his prison term, he gets a call from Vanger’s lawyer offering him a job to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of Henrik’s favorite niece, Harriet. The Vanger family has plenty of secrets to go around and about half of them involve aging Nazis, so of course Blomkvist accepts the job, requests Salander as a research assistant, and the mystery’s afoot!
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good mystery as much as the next guy who read The Da Vinci Code in two days, but we ‘re not talking about The Usual Suspects here. Dragon Tattoo comes replete with (predictable) twists, forensic science, and casual sex between investigators.4 Craig’s Blomkvist is bookish and grumpy–which sounds about right for an investigative journalist, but the problem is James Bond and his abs don’t really do a convincing “bookish.” The Swedish version nailed it by casting Michael Nyqvist–who’s just a normal looking dude.
You might remember Rooney Mara as the girl in The Social Network who dumped Mark Zuckerberg not because he was a nerd, but because he was an asshole. She’s already been nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in Dragon Tattoo, and I’m thinking she’ll get Oscar nom’d too. Mara does a good job playing Larsson’s Lisbeth, but he’s written a pretty one dimensional and wooden character. She doesn’t do much other than smoke, ignore questions, and solve mysteries. She also gets raped.
I think the excruciating, awful, gut-wrenching rape scene is one of the reasons this movie has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes while The Da Vinci Code has a 25%. I also think it’s one of the reasons Mara will be nominated for an Oscar, and rightfully so. But take out that scene and you’re left with an American remake of a Swedish mystery movie without any of the cool Scandinavian vibe. Not only that, but what does it say when we are so excited about such explicit violence towards women? And most disturbing, at least to me, is that Salander gets revenge on her rapist by raping him. In my book, this is not a victory.5 But, Lisbeth moves on, shrugs off the whole experience, and goes about woodenly solving mysteries. The only clue we have that she’s been affected at all is a bad dream here and there, or her reluctance to be touched (sometimes).
However, the best part of Dragon Tattoo is easily Trent Reznor. Dude has discovered a serious talent for scoring films, and I hope he keeps it up. Reznor, and collaborator Atticus Ross, won the original score Oscar last year for The Social Network, and they should be nominated again this year. Their cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” with vocals by Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) is awesome, but opens the movie paired with a totally weird non-sequitur of a title sequence. But whatever, the song rocks.
So, should you go see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Honestly, I’d recommend the Swedish version over its American counterpart. Sure, you’ll miss out on Trent Reznor, but you could just buy the soundtrack. What you’re really missing in the American version, and what the Swedish version does so well, is subtlety.
An example: in the Swedish film, after Lisbeth is violently raped she staggers home, her insides wrecked. It’s painfully obvious to the audience what’s happened and why she can no longer sit down. In the American version, before her rapist begins he says, “Oh, I forgot to ask, do you like anal sex?” Why would you breakup a fast paced and emotional scene to insert, what is tantamount to, a joke? We don’t need to be told that’s what’s happening, we can see it. Also that line changes the character from a normal guy that I could encounter in my day-to-day, to a more nefarious villain–which is less scary. There are other examples of this type of thing6 scattered throughout the film, and each one makes things more obvious, less creepy, and more…American, I guess?
Save your dollars on this one, folks, and instead, feed it to the Redbox.
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Footnotes
- Luckily, my new role as temporary movie reviewer will hopefully balance out my awkward vs. nonawkward solo movie stat. ↩
- These books are insanely popular. In 2008 Larsson was the second-best selling author in THE ENTIRE WORLD. ↩
- SELECT * FROM BlomkvistFiles WHERE interesting = 1. But seriously, there was a LEFT JOIN in there, so you know it’s legit. ↩
- A smarter reviewer than I could make a great Sherlock Holmes joke here. ↩
- There are lots and lots of people with lots and lots of thoughts on this if you want to spend some time reading. ↩
- One involves Enya ↩
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Don’t Redbox this version! Just rent the original swedish version.
@Carrie Totally! I was unclear, just go rent the Swedish version, it’s in a couple of the Redboxes around town.
May I remind you, as Matt Damon reminded Jon Stewart, that We Bought a Zoo was directed by Cameron Crowe? :-) Singles and Almost Famous are my favorite movies, so I’m willing to see his latest, even if it is a family movie with its plot thoroughly summarized in the title.
You really don´t have any idea which letters are Swedish and which are Danish/Norwegian do you?
@Göran Ingvarsson No, I do, but the joke’s not as funny without the “ø” ; ).
I didn’t like the musical score or the opening titles. Loved the one for the Social network. It had the opposite effect of it’s intention for me, possibly because I was listening to it. I like the idea of scoring a film in that way, with more noise and less lushness, but it stuck out way too much. It’s supposed to be mixed and scored in a way that you sort of forget its back there until you hear some piano figure again, which was perfect in the Social Network. That film had a distinct rhythm and edge to it that the Dragon Tattoo did not have. This time it sounded really full of itself, like it was constantly letting you know it was back there.
I would have preferred someone more along the lines of Johnny Greenwood’s score to “There Will Be Blood” that score played against the stark backdrop of the American West with unassuming strings and occasional guitar feedback. Like Reznor’s scores, few of the cues could stand alone on a concert stage.
I think Reznor and Ross have a knack for producing good film scores, but this particular one I would give a giant thumbs down. Maybe it was the pacing of the film, or just the look of it. I just didn’t feel it and I don’t think it fit very well.
Also, as of a couple of weeks ago the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was on Netflix, is it still there?
@T: All three of the Swedish films are streaming on Netflix.
No, I say you don´t. If you did you´d have used ö instead.
I’ve read the book and seen the Swedish original (streaming on Netflix, as others have mentioned). I also went to see this movie by myself, though not as a reviewer. And I have a slightly different take on it than you do, Ross.
The Fincher film is the best telling of this story I’ve experienced. It casts aside more of the hyper-detail of the book (which I found grating) than the Swedish film, tightening up the story.
What ever you want to say about the rape scenes and feminism or fetishism, they’re part of the story. I also disagree with you about the “joke” Bjurman, her guardian, makes before the second rape. It wasn’t meant to be funny, but to show what a sick bastard he is. Actually, the same goes for the Enya moment. Though the “Mac Jesus” scene supports your theory better than mine, I guess. And the NIN shirt on Lisbeth’s hacker friend (that got a real chuckle out of the audience at Movieland).
I think, overall, Fincher did a better job of deciding which parts of the book to keep and which to toss out, artfully crafting an excellent film that stands on its own apart from the previous film and the source novel. All the same, it still suffers from some of the same plot problems as the original, including a completely telegraphed “mystery” and characters with unclear motivations.
As you said, the score is excellent and the opening is a total non-sequitur, though I don’t see that as a bad thing. This may be because it stars Craig, but it felt a lot like a Bond title sequence to me.
I’m not fond of “excruciating, awful, gut-wrenching”. I did see the Swedish version and got enough of that there. I liked it well enough, but will pass on the next two. I can get through it in a book, but there’s something visceral and disturbing when watching actors portray the same thing onscreen.
@Tony: one of the problems I had with this review is not knowing whether problems in the film were because of the book, the Swedish movie, or the American movie. I kind of want to read the book so I can know more about where the movie(s) were coming from.
You’re welcome to borrow my copy. I picked it up a couple years ago while traveling, knowing nothing about it. I was sort of surprised to find out after the fact that it was such a huge hit. I started a long blog post about all the things I didn’t like about it (while still liking it, overall), but abandoned it when I found out it was published posthumously.
totally disagree. if you read the book, go see this and DO NOT watch the swedish version. it changes tons of things, and not for the better. people just like it because it is “hip” to like foreign films. it had very little to do with the book that i read. this movie follows the book almost perfectly, and i never found the book to be predictable. the only problems i had with the book were with the ending, and the movie tidies that part up a little better. plus, the character’s motivations are explored in the other books in the series, so i don’t really have a problem with that anymore either.
the score was awful and distracting. not at all like the austere vibe that i was hoping for when i read about the music before seeing the movie. there was this awful spooky thing happening when they roll up to henrik vanger’s house for the first time and i’m pretty sure i said aloud “WHY DOES THIS PART NEED TO BE OMINOUS? THEY ARE DRIVING TOWARD A HOUSE.” not a haunted house. nope. just a house. ugh. i feel like everyone decided to love this soundtrack before they even heard it. i thought i would love it. but it didn’t match the stark swedish thing that the movie needed/wanted.
SPOILER. The horse in War Horse doesn’t die, in fact, the horse tells the story in the book, but plenty of other people and animals die because it’s World War I.
@Lindsey, people think it is “hip” to watch foreign films? I watched Niels Arden Oplev’s version because it was the 1st adaptation of the book. I thought he did a fine job with the film. With that being said I love David Fincher’s films and I will go see his version or wait for it on DVD.
@steve yep they do think that! I watched it for the same reason as you. There are plenty of people, though, that say it’s way better just because it’s not from America. That’s ok, but just not my opinion. I liked this one better.
Nicely done!