Review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) by Nadine M — 15 Aug 2014

David Fincher is one of my favorite directors thanks to its perfectionist style and "Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres" (or as known in USA "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") is one of the few books that I love, so I had high expectations for Fincher´s version of Stieg Larsson´s story and characters, despite the fact it was already done in 2009.

In December 2002, Stockholm Sweden, publisher Mikael Blomkvist is at the verge of bankruptcy thanks of a lost case against a business man named Wennerström for defamation. In these troublesome times, Blomkvist is contacted by Henrik Vanger, the retired CEO of a gigantic Corporation known as Vanger Corporation. Henrik had read Blomkvist background, thanks to a brilliant hacker known as Lisbeth Salander and offers him damming information about Wennerström in exchange of investigating the disappearance and possible murder of Henrik´s grandniece Harriet, forty years ago.

Every time Hollywood makes a remake and/or an adaptation of a book the fans of the source material trash the adaptation because of the fact the screenwriters need to take out some elements in order to make a straightforward experience under the runtime of two hours. While I haven't seen the Swedish version and normally I don't care about the differences between source material and movie adaptation because I judge a film by its own, I love Stieg Larsson´s "Millennium trilogy" so I hoped that Fincher would make this phenomenal first book justice on the big screen and fortunately he surpassed my expectations since that bizarre but beautiful title sequence. This adaptation counts with everything: Phenomenal acting with the greatest of them all being Rooney Mara giving an Academy Award worthy performance as my beloved character Lisbeth Salander, beautiful locations, amazing directing by Fincher, a well done dark and menacing vibe, an effective pace, some tough scenes that thankfully they didn't took out, respect to the engaging and well told story of the book, the characters are well defined and the leading ones count with character development, phenomenal cinematography, a fantastic score and the whodunit is well done and has the audience guessing throughout the whole film, even if all the names are confusing.

David Fincher has made another well done, enjoyable, artistic, respectful, memorable and phenomenal adaptation from an already phenomenal book. I hope that Sony decides to film the two sequels and the crew involve in this film returns to make them. My favorite film from 2011.