#42. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) - Review

I can clearly recall when the distinct covers of Stieg Larsson’s “millennium trilogy” began to pop-up on every grocery store checkout stand and Target side display seemingly all at once. Expertly crafted to grab my attention, the words The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo stood separated from each other, as if attempting to embody the rebellious nature of its pierced protagonist. However, unlike most “new & noteworthy” must-reads that typically penetrate mainstream American culture, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was not only foreign, but also accompanied by two sequels, the similarly scattered The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  Unfortunately, after reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in 2004 I have an involuntary reflex to avoid most flavor of the month novels deemed thrilling by every neighbor, mailman, magazine, or billboard that I come into contact with. So I shied away from the Swedish trilogy, and not in a snobbish way mind you, I am hardly the avid reader trust me. I just did not care.

The Millennium TrilogyMy disinterest did not begin to wane until I read the reviews for the first cinematic adaptation directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Critics generally enjoyed the Swedish film, and most heralded Noomi Rapace’s performance. When the entire trilogy was offered on Netflix I had no excuse not to finally give Lisbeth Salander her fair shot. But then David Fincher got involved… so I waited. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) poster The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should have come out 10-years ago and starred Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. Freshly exiled journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the patriarch of the wealthy Vanger family and CEO of Vanger Industries, to investigate the disappearance of his niece Harriet over 40-years ago. The entire Vanger family lives on a beautiful island estate, each with their own homes scattered amongst the snow-covered trees and steep jagged hilltops. The only route on and off the island is by way of a bridge that, it just so happens, was closed the day Harriet vanished. It is made clear early on that it had to have been a member of the Vanger family responsible for the crime, but who?

During his proposition Henrik warns Blomkvist just how corrupt his relatives truly are by saying, “You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies—the most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet: my family.” A fair warning indeed, but what Henrik is really doing is making a promise to the audience that Blomkvist, and later Salander when she is hired as his assistant, will be enveloped by villainy, brought on to solve a crime where every clue will lead them deeper and deeper into a depraved worm hole where they will almost certainly be eaten alive by a cast of unfathomable deviants. Sadly, this promise is never fulfilled. Besided the actual killer (who is quite charming until his/her eventual turn), almost every member of the Vanger family is pleasant, even accommodating to Blomkvist and his assistant. The Vanger’s is a family tree lush with greed, incest, betrayal, secrecy, murder, and war criminals. Still, even the infirmed Nazi of the family happily assists Blomkvist in his search for the culprit. If there is anything I hate more than a Nazi it is a damn likable one!

The Vanger FamilySteven Zaillian’s script is a muddled collection of Steig Larson’s simple ideas, inexpertly arranged in a semi-comprehensible mishmash of not-so-clever whodunit tropes. This is a mystery that seems content to keep its audience guessing by simply hiding information from them. With absolutely no nuance each character is disappointingly shallow, unambiguous ornaments employed by Fincher and Zaillian to serve as uninteresting road blocks for the protagonists to intercept when necessary. This is a film where the most exciting moments occur during scenes of research, where watching Salander juggle four or five different open windows on her Macbook at the same time is absolutely mesmerizing. Similar to The Social Network, Fincher found a way to shoot a single character and her computer and make it completely engaging.

Or, perhaps these scenes work in Dragon Tattoo because of one person:

Lisbeth Salander.

Rooney Mara Lisbeth Salander Skittish, reclusive, uncontrollable – broken.

And unbelievably strong, she is her own savior, fighting for a single moment of calm in a lifetime of chaos. Rooney Mara plays the pierced protagonist with complete fearlessness. Consider her task for a moment. Mara not only has the daunting charge of playing a character that is manipulated, assaulted, mugged, abused, and raped repeatedly throughout the film, displaying a vulnerability unimaginable by most, but also follow in the footsteps of Hollywood’s newest “it” girl Noomi Rapace, who cut her teeth playing Salander in three Swedish adaptations, garnering critical praise and attention for her bombastic performance. Having not scene the Swedish films I cannot compare the two leads, but I can say without hesitation that Mara is sensational here, crafting a heroine quite unlike anything I have ever seen before. Salander is a shape-shifter, constantly adapting to her surroundings and her predators to stay alive. Her face is punctured with metal studs, her emaciated frame tattooed with random images and aphorisms, and while most people have personal reasons influencing their body art, it seems poor Lisbeth Salander gets ink done after a particular traumatic event- like the latest in a presumably long history of rapes and sexual assaults. For as riveting and complex Salander as a character is on screen, with the many questions of sexuality and female empowerment she evokes (and remember this is the same year Warner Bros. gave us Sucker Punch), it is a damn shame the film is a jumbled mess of thriller conventions and Fincher’s own eccentricities.

Beginning with an awkward, out of place opening credit sequence and ending with an uninspired climax so windless I did not realize Blomkvist and Salander had actually solved the case until the final scene on the island, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo never proves itself to be anything other than a blatant Hollywood cash-in. Salander as a character, and Mara’s impressive representation of her for that matter, deserves better than this, and Fincher is capable of so much more.  There are so many problems I have with this film I wish I could do a review with spoilers, but the film has not been out long enough in my opinion, but I have no doubt Salander will be showing up in film essays for years to come, redefining sexuality, control, and female empowerment in cinema. If nothing else Fincher deserves my thanks for introducing me to a female lead that should carry on, and hopefully influence screenwriters (males specifically) who seem content to appease horny man-children with disgusting representations of femininity and sexuality because they are the only demographic that will reliably buy tickets. 

If anyone wants to have a spoilery conversation about the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo then hit me up in the comments, because there is a lot of details about the film I would love to discuss with anyone that has seen it. Like always, please let the people know of Controller Unplugged by clicking the "share" button below!