The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009): Sweden – directed by Niels Arden Oplev

Rated R by the MPAA – contains some strong violence, sexual violence, sexual content, nudity, some language

On the surface, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a compelling mystery/crime drama, and, while it doesn’t go much deeper emotionally, it is far broader and more detailed than most other films in the genre.  One of the film’s primary struggles is balancing two primary characters.

Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a journalist for Millenium, a magazine focused on exposing corruption and other stories that often go unreported.  As the film opens he is facing a lawsuit from a wealthy industrialist with charges of slander.  Even though Blomkvist’s facts are correct, he is charged and sentenced to a light prison term.  In the months before he must serve his time, however, he’s approached by a wealthy Swedish family to help solve a decades-old disappearance.

The other main character is the titular girl with the dragon tattoo.  Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has a troubled past, and her present is about to be even more troubled.  She works as a researcher and practices hacking on the side.  She’s skilled, and adept with any kind of new technology.  But she has a legal guardian appointed by the state and is on a tight leash.  Thanks to certain indiscretions on the part of her new guardian, however, she is able to escape the tight restrictions he had placed on her.

At the same time Michael discovers she’s been hacking into his computer, and recruits her to help him with his new assignment.  Together they form an odd friendship, of sorts, and try to unravel the mystery behind Harriet Vanger’s disappearance.

The two characters could hardly be less similar.  Blomkvist is a straight-laced journalist, working hard on the facts and his story.  He has no wife, but harbors some affection for his married coworker, Erika (Lena Endre).  He is concerned with exposing the truth, out of a sense of duty.  Lisbeth, on the other hand, is neo-punk, and terribly anti-social.  She cares for her mom, who is ailing, and has a positive relationship with her old legal guardian, but has trouble forming new friendships.  She has a girlfriend at times, but when she ends up working closely with Blomkvist she ends up using him just for sex.

Lisbeth seems, for the first part of the film, like too much of an abstract character.  It isn’t until she wreaks her brutal revenge on her vile guardian that she first seems to be a real person.  She eventually becomes more sympathetic, if not entirely relatable.  Throughout she is the epitome of cool in an advanced, technologically adept society.  She’s the renegade, the Neo of this new Matrix.

Lisbeth and Blomkvist have a nice balance to them, and together present a reason to root for the film.  The story, however, is the key, as it eventually involves a large variety of characters, villains dating back to the age of the Nazi party, a serial killer, and plenty of files to be obtained by hacking.

The film moves at a brisk pace, despite being approximately two and a half hours long, and only occasionally becomes bogged down in details.  It is shot and performed adequately, and no stylistic flourishes interfere with the story.  The direction leans toward a modern European cleanness, which is welcome as the film is distinctly European.

There isn’t much to complain about in the film, as most of the plot threads fit together adequately, and there are only perhaps a couple places where it jumps without sufficient exposition.  But The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo succeeds at being an entertaining mystery/thriller.  It doesn’t plumb the depths of the human experience, and doesn’t need to.  It is sleek and enjoyable, and, for audiences who can stomach a brutal scene or two, worth seeking out.