The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

The Swedish one is good but this, I daresay, is better, though still not for the faint of heart, as the brutal rape scene remains, albeit a bit shorter and slightly less graphic, along with other violence ensuing. That doesn't mean you shouldn't bother with the original; both are engrossing. I loved the music and pacing in this one, as well as the gorgeous winter and spring scenery photographed by Jeff Cronenweth (shot One Hour Photo (2002), Down with Love (2003), and Oscar-nominated for The Social Network) mostly on location in Sweden.

Director David Fincher (after I wrote about him in The Social Network, he received another of the movie's five nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Cinematography, and Sound Editing, and it won for Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Original Score) and screenplay adapter Steven Zaillian (covered in Moneyball), adapting directly from the book and not from the other movie, use a more visual style and change a few details, leading one of my friends to think there are two stories that needed combining. Rooney Mara (briefly covered in The Social Network) is terrific as the title character, completely embodying the asocial, abused, and avenging Lisbeth. She lost weight, against the advice of her director, and got a number of actual piercings (details) both as method acting and so she'd be ready for the sequels (the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was part one of the Millennium Trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson, and all three were made into Swedish movies released over there between 2009-10). Speaking of the sequels, some industry analysts wonder if the sequels will get remade here at all, when this version has made somewhere between $21-47 million (every site gives a different number--that's Hollywood) in two weeks against a budget of around $90 (the Swedish version cost $7 million, or was it $13 million, and it may have made $104 million so far). Daniel Craig (last mentioned in Cowboys & Aliens) brings macho that I kind of wanted in the older movie to Mikael Blomqvist. Supporting cast are all good: Christopher Plummer (Beginners, much more) wonderful as always as Henrik, as is Joely Richardson (Vanessa Redgrave's and Tony Richardson's daughter, she was great in Return to Me (2000), 101 Dalmatians (1996), 100 episodes of Nip/Tuck, and I liked and liked her in the much-maligned I'll Do Anything (1994)) as adult Anita, Stellan Skarsgård (last in these pages in Melancholia) and all the rest. The one I had to look up was Geraldine James as Cecilia, whose face I knew from Made in Dagenham, Sherlock Holmes, and its new sequel (which I'll be writing up next) (yes, the holidays have put me very, very far behind in both watching and writing).

The story is set in a few locations in Sweden, and all the characters speak English with mild Swedish accents, to my ear. I had no trouble understanding them, though a couple of my friends did (the worst example of this trend was Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), an American adaptation of an American book about Japan, with Asian actors, all of whom are able to speak English flawlessly, using thickly accented English that had me longing for closed captions).

My anticipation for this version began the first time Jack and I saw the first trailer for this, with Karen O of the Yeah Yeahs singing lead on a kick-ass cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. We laughed out loud at the tagline, "The feel bad movie of Christmas." And it was nice to hear that cover over the splashy opening credits, instead of saving it for the end. Speaking of the end, this, like the other version, is closer to three hours than to two, so be prepared.

We thought that having seen the first version helped us to understand many details. Lots has been written comparing the two, and here are some articles (one, two, three), which I recommend reading after you've seen all you plan to see, as they contain spoilers.

As I said above, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won the Oscar (and Golden Globe) for Original Score of The Social Network, their first feature together, and this is their second, already nominated for the Golden Globe (Oscar nominations will be announced January 24). Reznor is perhaps best known as part of Nine Inch Nails, and Ross worked with him in that and other bands. The soundtrack is extremely edgy (start with this link and move on to the others) and is composed of almost three hours of Reznor & Ross's instrumentals, plus the Karen O cover and Is Your Love Strong Enough (a Bryan Ferry cover) by (one of Reznor's other bands) How to Destroy Angels.

I can't finish this post without mentioning the emailed conversation I'm having with a friend, who was so horrified at the brutality in the 2009 version (which was released here in May of 2010, at which time he walked out during the aforementioned rape scene) that he published in his own blog last week that he feels it's his societal duty to shun and encourage others to shun such "entertainment." He says that audiences are perversely aroused by scenes such as this. I couldn't disagree more. I know of not one person who felt arousal, only disgust and horror, clearly the intent of both filmmaking teams. Perhaps we who see a lot of action movies, even action comedies, do get somewhat numbed to violence on screen, but there is no numbing possible for this one. It hits hard (pun intended) and that's what makes it so scary. Again, not for the faint of heart. That being said, both movies are still in the high 80th percentiles on rottentomatoes (this one 85% critics, 84% audiences; the older one 86/85). Jack and I recommend it for 85% of our friends, including you, dear readers.