When it was announced last year that Hollywood was remaking The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo many of us let out a collective sigh. But as David Fincher was announced as the director, we retracted that sigh quicker than we let it out. Fincher has never made a film not worth seeing, and on the back of his success with last year’s The Social Network his take on this material was an intriguing invitation to say the least. But to re-adapt a story many of us are already familiar with, either through Stieg Larsson’s bestselling novels or the Swedish language movie adaptations, which themselves featured a central female performance many deemed untoppable, we have to wonder if Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is even necessary at all.
As before, the film follows disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) as he is hired by a haunted billionaire, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to plow through 40 years worth of investigative material, clues and conspiracy theories to uncover the truth about what happened to his great-niece Harriet who mysteriously vanished in 1968. It’s only when Blomkvist teams up with master hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a tattood, pierced, leather-clad researcher who may or may not be insane, that he starts to unravel the web of lies that has shrouded the Vanger family for decades.
Proving to be an exception to the “Hollywood dumbs and dilutes everything down” rule, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a tough film to watch, but refreshingly so. Never one to smooth over rough edges, Fincher does justice to the story’s darker elements with gut-wrenching scenes of rape, sexual abuse and ultra-violence. Many complained that Niels Arden Oplev’s original film was a little too hard-edged but for my money, Fincher’s take is even more extreme. Not necessarily more graphic but his eye for detail gives the scenes an unnerving specificity which makes them more disturbing. For such a mainstream production, it’s both shocking and comforting to see just how far Fincher was allowed to push his boundaries. I can’t remember the last time I saw a 100 million dollar movie be this dark and distressing. It’s about time Hollywood started making movies for adults again, and thank God this one is so well made and so well acted.
Since the casting announcement, one thing I’ve never doubted about the 2011 Dragon Tattoo is the success of it’s Blomkvist. I’ve always got the sense that Daniel Craig is an extremely meticulous actor in the same way that Fincher is meticulous as a director. He seems to choose his projects carefully, working only with the best and tackling material that is a little edgy and challenging. In the few duds he has appeared in, I imagine they didn’t start that way and Craig is usually the first to point out a film’s flaws if it has ended in disappointment. Perhaps all this is why no other James Bond has managed to separate himself from the 007 persona quite as well. Judging from the interviews surrounding Dragon Tattoo, Craig seems to have adored the grueling 40+ take process that comes with making a David Fincher movie and the two are like a match made in heaven.
As Blomkvist, Craig’s face and mannerisms soak up Fincher and Cronenweth’s lighting as if it was coming from light-bulbs at home. He looks and feels correct with this material. Clad in cardigans, hair unkempt and constantly thinking, he plods around his environments obsessing over details nobody else seems to care about but ultimately prove to be the key to success. He is sly in his methods but always polite and considerate and never too proud. All this could be said for Fincher himself for whom Blomkvist feels like an avatar more so than his previous protagonists. The way Craig repeatedly adjusts his reading glasses from his chin to his eyes scene to scene is a brilliant little tick I loved and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one he lifted from his director between takes. The relationship between Blomkvist and a cat is also a nice enhancement from both the original novel and movie. It’s a touch that may seem throwaway but it makes many of the film’s earlier scenes that much more interesting, at least until Blomkvist is joined by another feline.
As great a Blomkvist as Craig is, the talking point of this movie was always going to be it’s Lisbeth Salander. Salander is a character so great she has now launched the careers of two actresses. It’s a role that saw Hollywood’s hottest leading ladies feverishly battle it out only for them to be defeated by a fresh faced up and comer called Rooney Mara whom many only recognised as “that girl” from The Social Network. To put those thoughts to rest, Mara is a fantastic Lisbeth. She is tiny and waif-like but punctuated by spikes and hard edges. She sees the worst in people and when she looks at you, she doesn’t blink. If you lock eyes, you will look away before she does. She’s entrancing and strangely beautiful but not exactly desirable (as least not at first). You never know if she’s a psychotic demon or a misunderstood pixie in disguise. You can’t put your finger on her and even if you could it would probably bleed as a result. Mara is completely transformed and almost unrecognisable to the same degree that Heath Ledger got lost behind the madness of The Joker. It’s the bravest performance of the year and one that cements Mara as Hollywood’s most daring new vixen, even if her breakthrough will always rest in another actresses shadow.
Mara plays the character differently to how Noomi Rapace did in 2009 (three times). They both latch on to different aspects of Salander’s character and each use their differing body types to their advantage. Rapace was more lizard-like, a reptile coiled and ready to strike at any second. There was no doubt watching Rapace that she could handle herself in any situation. Mara on the other hand is more feminine, but dangerously so. She’s like a wildcat. Feral but vulnerable. I feared for her more than I did Rapace and was taken on more of an emotional journey. She is not as physically threatening which makes her bravery all the more badass. While the original Swedish incarnation of Lisbeth left me impressed and in awe, Mara’s interpretation intimidated, terrified and seduced me, in that order. To say which is better is impossible as there is no right and wrong, Rapace will always undoubtedly, and deservedly, own the role but I think I prefer Mara. She played it closer to how I felt Lisbeth should be played, she was more fascinating. I want to know more about her, a feeling I never had from the original film.
If you’re going into the Dragon Tattoo story for the second, or even third time it’s impossible not to compare it to what has gone before. Perhaps the up side to this, however, is that as the familiar scenes tumble by one by one and go through your brain’s little compare and contrast process, it’s Fincher’s versions that are most satisfying. While not too distant from Oplev’s, his direction is more assured and his choices make more sense. In that sense the film is an improvement on the original film but it stays true to it’s narrative and that is part of the problem. Adapted by legendary screenwriter Steven Zaillian, this remake could have been a great opportunity to iron out some of the problems that befell this story the first time around. The main issue with both films, and indeed the novel, is that the story reaches it’s peak a good 30 minutes before the end credits roll. That peak is so surprising, scary and exhilarating that when the film settles back into the “Okay so what did happen to Harriet?” mystery we just don’t really care anymore.
It’s in the supporting elements that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo also shines. Christopher Plummer and Steven Berkoff are wonderful in their all-too-brief screen time and the who’s who of villainous Vanger family members and affiliates are brought to life by a host of interesting faces you’ll pull your hair out trying to navigate. Stellan Skarsgard shows up in a key role that, if you know your Stellan Skarsgard history, won’t be as surprising as I imagine the filmmakers wanted it to be but still, he’s there doing what he does best better than ever. I could go on at great length about the joys of the film’s moody cinematography courtesy of Jeff Cronenweth but it’s the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that threatens to steal the show right from under everybody’s noses. Beautifully chilling, it pulsates alongside the film like a cold heartbeat, it’s surprisingly restrained and moving. Subtle but never invisible. A more than satisfying follow up to their incredible work on The Social Network. It seems that Fincher has finally found his Danny Elfman or Bernard Herrmann and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
The main selling point of this movie for me was always going to be David Fincher. There’s something about him as a visual stylist that I’m completely in love with. He’s certainly my favourite contemporary filmmaker in that regard. His decisions with composition, cutting and camera movement are all so wonderfully precise and endlessly fascinating that anything Fincher churns out will always be a feast for the eyes. Dragon Tattoo is no different. He shoots it as a thriller first and foremost, his camera roams around adapting to character’s POV’s and is often looking down from great heights. He has fun with the dark material, injecting humour where you least expect but delivers visceral sucker punches in just the right places for full effect. The image of a twisted face frozen in desperation struggling for air inside a plastic bag is certainly one I won’t forget any time soon and I sure as hell won’t be able to hear Enya’s Sail Away in the same way ever again. You can almost feel the snow scratching your face as you take in the icy landscapes and the chilly atmosphere threatens to give you frostbite. He handles the film with such ease, however, that I started to wonder if this is Fincher pushing himself to top what has gone before or if it’s just him being comfortable working in familiar territory.
This is a movie that plays to all of Fincher’s strengths and it seems to have been culled from every corner of his shadowy psyche and indeed every corner of his pre-existing oeuvre. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. Lisbeth’s hacker world of fingers rat-a-tat-tating away on keyboards and faces ignited by computer screens was a big part of last year’s Social Network, the stomach-churning violence and bleak outlook of Se7en is back, the cat-and-mouse thrills of Panic Room come in handy during the final act and the unsolved murder at the film’s core is nothing compared to the obsessive investigation to end all obsessive investigations lying at the heart of Zodiac. Lest not forget that Salander’s anarchic punk-rock “fuck the world” attitude would certainly impress the imaginary pants off of a certain Tyler Durden. It’s not the career-catapult into an exciting new phase that his last movie was, instead it seems like he’s giving his final word on many themes he’s already mastered. There’s even an exhilarating James Bond-esque title sequence thrown in for good measure which is a nice treat for us fans who fondly remember the Fincher that gave us the opening title blitzkrieg’s of Se7en and Fight Club, but it feels like a step backwards that is a tad out of touch with the movie it’s introducing. This is Fincher on pause rather than fast-forward, but at least it’s still a Fincher movie through and through.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a film that we may not have needed but one I now realise I wanted to see. I was curious to see how Fincher would handle this story visually and it didn’t disappoint. It’s an inky chiller made of ice and stone, told with precision by the most precise of modern filmmakers. It neither massively improves on or undermines the Swedish original, but rather sits alongside it as an alternative companion piece. As an adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel it’s the more satisfying of the two with actors more fitting to Larsson’s descriptions but it still doesn’t quite get past some of the narrative hiccups that work better for page rather than screen. This is mainstream cinema at it’s most darkest and contains some of the hardest scenes 2011 had to offer, which is what it may end up being remembered for, as well as Rooney Mara’s ballsy performance ofcourse. Despite being on auto-pilot, Fincher’s hands are all over this movie and for that reason alone I imagine it will be the Dragon Tattoo I return to time and time again in the years to come. If this is to be Hollywood’s next big franchise, they’re off to a great start.
