The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Year: 2010
Rating: **

For my mom's birthday, the fam trooped off to see the Swedish version of this movie, based on the novel-that's-sweeping-the-nation by Stieg Larsson -- soon to be cashed in on remade, of course, in Hollywood.   Being the only person, apparently, who has not read the book, I was unprepared for the rather graphic and dark content within.  Its original title, Män som hatar kvinnor, ("Men Who Hate Women") would have better prepared me.

We first meet Mikael Blomkvist (played, perhaps confusingly, by Michael Nyqvist), a journalist currently under scrutiny for past works that stirred up the wrong pot.  Despite this scandal, he is hired privately to pursue the case of a long-missing favorite niece of a wealthy man residing in the countryside of Sweden.  When he starts to look into the complicated family history and runs into a number of dead ends, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the professional hacker who has been hired to look into his own past, gives him a hand with his case.  The two eventually meet up and delve into the work together, uncovering years of misogyny, abuse, deceit, and antisemitism.

I had a visceral reaction to the violence depicted in this film.  To me it seemed gratuitous, and I was utterly unprepared for how graphic and unsettling it would be.  For those who read the book, it may be less of an issue, but I strongly caution my admittedly small audience that this presented a major barrier to my enjoyment of the film and definitely influenced my rating.

That said, it is well made, unpredictable, relatively fast-paced, and certainly gripping.  I'm uncertain as to why Hollywood feels the need to make it their own, and can only assume that the wild success of the novel series (SERIES) (read: more to come) has something to do with it.  Swedish is utterly interesting to listen to, and Noomi Rapace offers a fascinating new face to watch on screen.  

Ultimately, though, I have to come back to my original warning: caveat spectator...  Let the viewer beware.