This is a very good thriller recommended for those with tough constitutions and strong bladders (it's 2:42 long). Containing graphic violence against women and men, it would be R or stronger if the MPAA had rated it. Even though it's going to be remade in English, Roger Ebert and I both recommend you see the original Swedish version. Based on the best-selling novel and part I of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson (1954-2004), its title literally translates to Men Who Hate Women. Parts II (The Girl Who Played with Fire) and III (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest) have also been made into movies with the same stars (Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist) and one director, different from part I, but have not yet been released in the US. I started reading the novel a few months ago and was having a hard time slogging through even the non-violent parts when I heard it was going to be a movie so I put it away. Judy and Trudy don't know each other, but they both liked it a lot, so Jack, Mary Ellen, Dan, and I saw it last week and Mary Ellen exclaimed, "I loved it!" at the closing credits. It's hard for me to use the word "love" for something so disturbing, but, like I said, it's really well crafted and paced. We didn't notice its length while we were watching it. Rottentomatoes.com, which averages critics' and users' ratings, gives this an unusually high 85% (listed with the American release date of 2010). I don't read reviews before seeing movies (too many plot-spoilers and anticipation-dampeners), but you may like to browse through the list of their highest ratings here.
I can't imagine anyone but Danish actress Rapace playing Lisbeth Salander: smart, goth, and angry (here's a pleasant picture of her in contrast to how she looks as Lisbeth). The director of this one, Niels Arden Oplev, is also Danish, but the other principals are Swedish. Nyqvist's Mikael Blomkvist is softer than Lisbeth (at times I was reminded of a similar contrast between Angela Bassett and Ralph Fiennes in Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days (1995)). Sven-Bertil Taube, who plays Henrik Vanger, is a singer best known in his own country for recording songs written by his father Evert Taube, as well as a role on PBS's Upstairs, Downstairs.
We were pleased that Lisbeth's computer is a MacBook, though it is one of several anachronisms (the movie takes place in 2005, but MacBooks came out in 2006, and her operating system is from 2007). Whatever. As I said in The Joneses, Apple doesn't need to pay filmmakers or TV producers to showcase its products.
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