Review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) by Dean M — 07 Mar 2013

This is the best adaptation imaginable with an intoxicating and worthy performance from Rooney Mara as the heroine like Swedish's Noomi Rapace in the original 2009 film.

With "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" director David Fincher has put his trademark darkness to fantastic use. Whether its sweeping shots of freezing, snow covered Sweden or wonderfully eerie interiors Fincher creates an unsettling atmosphere that is unrelenting and technically perfect. With Fincher i've learnt to expect a beautifully shot film and this is no exception, within this film are some of his greatest images. Regarding the disturbing nature of some scenes, Fincher is wise enough to show them in all their horror but doesn't stop to linger or exploit.

"I think people are perverts," announces Fincher in the commentary, making the case for his latest hunt-the-sicko art epic, "and that's made my career." Based on the Swedish mega-seller book, this features a disgraced journo and super-smart punkette sniffing out the psycho in a skeleton-packing, stinking rich, snow-bound brood. Hence it is enthralling, with career-high performances from Daniel Craig (amusingly a bit of s*it as Mikael Blomkvist), Mara (lithe and charismatic as Lisbeth Salander) and Sweden (countryside and cityscape sullen in their moral deep-freeze).

Yet a pall hangs across the movie, viewed as underperforming, scolded for being the other version, automatically enrolling the homespun Noomi Rapace edition as the genuine article.

Mara's Salander is a prime example of what separates the two adaptations: Here she is much more designed, the death-metal tech freak now movie-glammed via Pris from Blade Runner. She comes on like a superhero with a cigarette burn of an origin story. Yet, Rapace still feels more dangerous. She never lets you settle.

Fincher kept Mara dangling for the role for two months, testing her resolve with six screen tests and a list of forthcoming Salander abuses: smoking, nudity, biking, brutalised hair, and the rape. Here Fincher makes us sickeningly complicit (we, the perverts), shutting the door, suggesting retreat, before exposing us to Mara's animal struggles. His direction to her had been stark - scream as much as you need to. One of the few times the director's intelligence supersedes the Gothic pulp source.

Fincher's meticulous neo-noir sheen brings an architectural clarity to author Stieg Larsson's weaknesses as well as his strengths. For all the regional gloom-mongering, it's derivative stuff, long on family snapshots, short on set-pieces, with a saggy denouement.