Review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) by Radicalist — 31 Dec 2011

This is yet another masterful addition to the David Fincher canon. His movies are distinctly unique among modern Hollywood. On one hand, they are highly commercial, slick action pictures; on the other, he imbues his films with layers and layers of intriguing, dark and perverse subtext.

All his films are just dense with juicy details and character idiosyncracies. I thought that this film trumped the swedish version because it revealed deeper shades of the characters and their lives (much is unspoken but evident in character behaviour) as well as the overall aesthetic atmosphere, which to me were synonomous with the most intriguing aspects of the book.

I thought in terms of plot development and detail, the swedish tv series and subsequent movies had a lot more literate exposition and they included more detail from the plot of the novel, but imho I agree with Fincher and Zaillian's perspective of dialing down extra plot detail in order to have a clear expose of the main themes of the book.

Fincher does not shy away from the grim horrors of male domination, in fact the elements of sexual abuse in this film are evoked so clearly, graphically and painfully that it has the capacity to disturb on a profound conscious level.

Fincher knows very well that the real plot of these stories deals with rape and sexual torture in our society. Overall the film's aesthetic quality is unsurpassed, Fincher remains one of the few modern hollywood auteurs.

His keen eye for visual precision and atmosphere as well as the suberb music of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross make for a thoroughly mesmerizing adaptation. I believe added viewings of this film are necassary (Like all of Fincher, and great films in general).