Review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) by Marcdoyle — 21 Dec 2011

I have special love for the original Swedish version which I listed as my fourth favorite film of 2010. If that movie didn't exist, I may have very different feelings about this one - for good AND for bad.

Rooney Mara is terrific in this role, but I don't think she's necessarily better than Noomi. Noomi had that smoldering, caged heat feeling about her. It was more of a masculine slow burn, whereas Rooney is much more feminine, and her character is a bit less focused.

Both are solid in their roles, but I think I prefer Noomi's take on it. The Swedish version focuses much more on the the mystery of Harriet's death, and it's much more process-oriented, which I preferred.

The Fincher film glosses over much of the detail of that investigation ,and I feel that if I hadn't seen the original, I might have been a bit lost with regard to the family tree, the unlocking of the old photographs, and the tic toc on the day of the car crash on the bridge.

I also liked the original's resolution of the murder mystery storyline much more, with Harriet coming back from Australia - the acting and the sense of relief was palpable and enormously satisfying. Comparatively I didn't feel that Christopher Plummer cared nearly as much to see her.

Now, on the other hand, the "theft" sequence with Mara draining bank accounts and her subsequent show of real love for Bloomquist at the end was much more fleshed out - and to a more satisfying degree - in the Fincher film.

The bottom line for me is that there's nothing like the first time, and this film simply didn't stack up to the power of original which really did cut like a knife. To me, it's a classic. To compare these two to another pair of films - I loved Let The Right One One, the Swedish original, but Let Me In, the American version, stacked up very well against it.

It brought something special to the story - perhaps more so than than Fincher's Dragon Tattoo does. ALL this being said, I certainly was entertained by Fincher's movie and recommend it.