If you haven’t yet, go see this movie. My friend Kim lays out all the reasons I would give, so go read her assessment. And then go.
The one point in which I disagree with Kim is on the title. The original Swedish title of the book and the movie is Män som hatar kvinnor, which means “Men Who Hate Women.” It was changed for North American audiences for reasons I’m unclear on. Possibly because the publisher felt the original title is too stark, too depressing, too blunt, or not zazzy enough. And while a part of me dislikes that the title was changed, I appreciate it on two counts. One, all the English titles in Millenium trilogy start with “The Girl” — The Girl Who, The Girl With — which gives the set a more cohesive feel (if I’m not mistaken, the original Swedish title for the second book is The Girl Who Played With Fire, so the conceit wasn’t made up from nothing). But more importantly, it puts Lisbeth Salander, one of the greatest heroines ever written, at the forefront (though, admittedly, she is reduced to a physical characteristic. However, it is a characteristic she chose to have. I could analyze this all day). While the story is about men who hate women, the title is about the woman who gloriously fights back. I have no problem with that.
I do agree with Kim that it’s one of the best, if not the best, film adaptation of a novel that I’ve ever seen. And that it’s one of the smartest, most suspenseful, powerful movies I’ve seen in quite a while.
If you’re unfamiliar with the story, here’s the nutshell version: Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist for Millennium magazine, and has just been sentenced to a six-month sentence for libel against a big corporate tycoon. Lisbeth Salander is a computer hacker working for a security company to run checks on individuals and has been tracking Blomkvist, who she thinks was set up for the libel fall. That’s all background. She’s been following Blomkvist, hacking into his computer, on behalf of Henrik Vanger, who wants Blomkvist to investigate the murder of his niece Harriet, which happened 40 years ago. Very dark things follow. Very dark.
I did get the impression that the movie was made for an audience well familiar with Larsson’s trilogy. There are a few minor details that I wouldn’t have picked up on had I not read the book, but as they are minor, it won’t hurt if you haven’t read the book (although you may question why it is that Salander, at the age of 24, still requires some sort of guardianship). But the movie pares down all the corporate/financial intrigue that takes up the first 50 or whatever pages that made me and a lot of people I know think, “The hell? This is not the book I thought it was going to be.”
The movie does not flinch one iota from depicting the sick, horrific violent acts against women, which we watch unfold or glimpse through police photos of crime victims, and it does so without the sort of simplified melodrama that tends to accompany acts of violence against women in American movies. You know what I’m talking about. I can’t think of any specific examples right now but I can tell you that when movies don’t layer melodrama over depictions of rape and abuse, critics tend to describe them as “gritty.” And I can tell you that if I hadn’t read the book beforehand, I would’ve been extremely uncomfortable and disturbed during these scenes. As it was, I watched, imagining the subtext was “You’re uncomfortable? Good. Because this stuff happens. It happens all the time. And you’re going to watch it. And you’re going to know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that you could be attacked anywhere, anytime, by anyone, for no other reason than you’re a girl.”
But just as much, the story is about fighting back. Interestingly, it would seem as though the only way to stop violence is with stronger, more sadistic violence. Justice isn’t necessarily served here. Street justice, on the other hand, packs more of a wallop. I remember finding these particular scenes extremely satisfying in the book. In the movie, I was more disturbed by them, which again I think was the reaction I was supposed to have.
It sounds as though the movie is nothing but scenes of violence against women, which isn’t the case, though they are prominent. It’s a classic mystery thriller — a genre I didn’t think I really liked until a couple years ago, and now find myself reading nothing but — and as mystery thrillers go, it’s impeccably done.
Never mind the fact that the movie is the strongest endorsement for iPhoto I’ve ever seen. I can’t remember where I read this, but someone noted that it was wonderful to see a movie in which the computer stuff — and there’s quite a bit of it — was all real. None of those crazy graphics that look cool but aren’t based in any computer reality. MacBooks are the weapon of choice, and Blomkvist manages to get clues by going into iPhoto and altering the sharpness, contrast, and exposure of photos he’s scanned in. Sometimes it stretches the imagination, but it’s much better than all that “Enhance! Enhance! Enhance!” crap. In fact, the computer nerd in me was completely won over by the scene in which someone tells Blomkvist that he can’t zoom in for a clear close-up of a particular detail because the original photo is so blurry. That never happens in the movies.
It’s also one of those rare foreign movies that make me forget I’m reading subtitles. It was as if I was watching the book that I’d read a year ago unfold as it did in my head. Noomi Rapace is exactly how I pictured Lisbeth. She IS Lisbeth. I can’t imagine anyone else playing that role.
My understanding is that there will be Swedish movie adaptations of each book in the trilogy — the Swedish trailer for The Girl Who Played With Fire is already on YouTube — and, in fact, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo includes scenes that look forward to the second installment. Wikipedia says it’s slated for release in the states in the fall of this year. I hope that’s true, because I can’t wait.
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