I’m a bit perplexed by the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, one of those “astonishing bestsellers” that ends up playing like every other airport potboiler from the past 30 years. The late author Stieg Larssen invested it with plenty of personal experience, but he couldn’t assemble his various ideas into an organic story. He benefited from an intriguing main character – at least before she descended into chronic Mary Sue-dom – and some clever mystery elements, but the tale remained a real mess. A Swedish film version brought both the good and the bad to the big screen, and now the inevitable Hollywood rendition – featuring slick production values and none of those scary subtitles to frighten off the public – attempts a second repackaging.
Does it work? Sort of. The big studio machine cleans up some of Larssen’s lingering plot difficulties, and director David Fincher gives it a sleek look to mirror the darkness of its soul. He’s well suited to the material and makes the tale his own without surrendering any of Larssen’s essence. (He also gives it one of the two best opening sequences of the year; strange that the other one – The Adventures of Tintin – opens just a day later.) But even he can’t overcome the tale’s structural deficits, and the third act completely defeats him as he struggles to bring it all to a conclusion.
Dragon Tattoo encompasses three loosely related threads. Uber-hacker Lsabeth Salander (Rooney Mara) responds to the brutal sexism of the men around her while fighting her way free of a traumatic past. Ace reporter Mikael Blomqvist suffers a legal drubbing at the hands of his corporate nemesis and needs to clear his name. And a well-do-do family patriarch (Christopher Plummer) eventually tasks them both to find the answers to a forty-year-old disappearance. Their path winds through the family’s Nazi past, odious present and declining future: uncovering sinister secrets at every turn.
The mystery itself scores the biggest points, tying Silence of the Lambs-style serial killing with some rather brilliant clues leading our heroes to the murderer. Fincher serves it up with his typical cocktail of elegant shadows and oily pools of light, while Trent Reznor’s awesome score hammers home the Industrial Goth. If the film could get by on looks alone it would soar, especially when Mara enters the mix. Pale and skeletal with watery eyes that sear right through you, her Lisbeth is less an occupant of this world than its living embodiment: channeling her anger and pain into fearsome acts of feminist revenge at every turn.
Sadly, that icing can’t disguise the disjointed structure beneath, nor the way different story elements collide into each other rather than playing nice like they should. Salander and Blomqvist seemingly occupy different movies for the first hour, coming together only once her subplot is more or less resolved. They carry the middle third admirably, then stumble apart again after the main fireworks have passed: dancing their way around awkward narrative shards and trying to wrap things up without lacerating themselves.
Dragon Tattoo suffers from other flaws as well. Some are conceptual (Blomqvist’s status as author surrogate becomes decidedly creepy once Salander starts making doe eyes at him); others are technical (when a name actor spends most of the movie wandering around doing nothing, warning flags tend to go off). But all of them tangle its better elements to prevent them from moving forward. The final act seals the deal: the movie doesn’t end so much as stop, saving things for the presumed sequels that may or may not come to light. It leaves a bad taste on an already difficult package, as we contemplate a studio once again counting its chickens before they hatch. Dragon Tattoo offers a handsome package built on rickety foundations, hoping to pass inspection on good looks alone. It comes close at times, but it still leaves us wondering what all the fuss is about.
It sounds like they may have done a better job than the foreign version. Which really struggled along. The book, I agree is disjointed, but a fun read. Well, dark as it may be, it is enjoyable. The criticisms may be legitimate to the reviewer, but that is what happened in the book. Which obviously has a very strong following.
The book has a following that I don't understand. For anyone who is a regular viewer of SVU, the book is tame and trite by comparison.
Hmmm, I really enjoyed the originial movie. There really is some scummy material in this film, and I am not sure if a Hollywood polish is something the source material needs.
Rob gives this a C , so that means I'll probably love this movie. :)
Though, I must admit that his description of how the movie stops & not ends is a major red flag to me. That annoys me when movies do that. Combine that with a less than stellar opinion of the source material from a friend of mine means that I'll probably wait until this hits cable or the rental queue.
The first book has a definite "self contained" ending. Through the first half it is telling two different stories that end up eventually connecting. And, I can assure you, the graphic aspect dipicted in the book and seen somewhat in the foreign film is not SVU material. I think maybe it has a following because it has interesting characters that have layers of dimension opposed from your typical cop show which is rather two dimensional.
To say TGWTDT is like SVU is like saying Harry Potter is just like The Sword and the Sorcerer.
Rob i never knew why you were critisized for your reviews until now. I saw the movie last night and enjoyed it very much. The story never bore me and all the characters seemed perfectly casted. I havent read the books yet but now i cant wait. You complain that the movie just ends because the studio is already "counting its chickens"? There are 3 books Rob and trust me when i say THERE WILL BE ANOTHER MOVIE.
Does anyone know of a site like mania that talks about flms other than just genre sci fi and superheroes? This film does seem out of place on this site, but I'd definitely like an alternative to talking about "Spidey's rubber suit", or "Bane is badass".
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i've read a few reviews for this movie and it seems everyone's gripe is with the story itself. that there are big fireworks and then a bit more story after. that is the way the book goes. salander and blomqvist don't spend much time together at all. there will be a dramatic conclusion, and then what feels like an epilogue. unfortunately these are elements of the books and not necessarily the films fault. wait for the sequal if this annoys you. salander completely dissappears for the better part of that story. i enjoyed the book and didn't mind it's structure so despite the reviews i'm excited to see this next week