When a movie is longer than two and a half hours, it has to be intense to keep the viewers’ attention. As far as the 2011 English-language version of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is concerned, it manages to stay exciting from the beginning to the end, for variety of reasons.
The plot is fascinating, although it slightly differs from Larsson’s original novel. The movie starts out as a detective story. One of the main characters, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), who is a journalist accused and found guilty of libel, is hired to investigate the disappearance of Harriet, the niece of Henrik Vagner (Christopher Plummer), a retired businessman, who passed his company, Vagner Industries, to his nephew, Martin Vagner (Stellan Skarsgard). Officially, Mikael is introduced to the family as the writer of Henrik’s memoirs, but in reality, his job is to find out what happened to Harriet Vagner, who was 16 last time the family saw her, and believed to have been murdered.
In addition to having a mysterious murder case, the movie is also a drama about the life of a woman, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), the girl with the dragon and other tattoos. She is only 23, but she has already had a difficult life. At one time, she confesses that she attempted to murder her father when she was 12. As the girl is believed to be mentally unstable and not sociable, Lisbeth is assigned a legal guardian. Once her previous caretaker suffers a stroke, she gets another one, who gives her a monthly allowance and sexually abuses her. Not willing to put up with the luscious bastard, Lisbeth figures out a way to take revenge and make sure her finances are under her control once again. When things get ugly on the screen, the camera does not look away, and most violent actions of the characters are shown to the viewers, and there are sexual scenes and nudity, and the movie is rated R for that reason.
But the graphic violence scenes are not too bloody and even though the viewers are disturbed by what a person can do to another, even the most sensitive do not have to close their eyes afterward. These moments are more emotionally intimidating, rather than hard to see and stomach.
As the movie progresses, the two stories come together when Lisbeth is hired to help Mikael investigate the case. They build both professional and personal bonds, while digging out the horrible truth about the Vagners.
What makes this movie a huge success is the acting. Out of all members of the cast, Rooney Mara is the most brilliant transformation. She manages to put aside her looks and manners of “a girl next door” in order to become a tough and not exactly feminine young woman with lots of piercings and tattoos and unfriendliness towards everyone she comes across. Her colleagues do a great job as well. There are a few moments when characters concentrate their attention on objects and we realize what they are thinking at the moment. For instance, Mikael arms himself with a knife in Martin’s house and when Martin arrives, he notices that the knife is missing. From the man’s facial expression alone, the audience infers that he knows that Blomkvist got it and is ready to react appropriately.
But what truly captivates the viewers is how tension is created in the movie. The most important scenes are slow-paced, and the situations the characters find themselves in get worse step by step to create suspense. A good example is the scene when Lisbeth’s new guardian forces her to perform oral sex on him. He starts out with, “You need to learn how to be sociable and do things for other people and then they will take care of you in return,” after which he puts the girl’s hand on his crotch and tells her to unzip his pants. We know where this is going, but it is so much more painful to watch when it’s given to us gradually.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is definitely a must-see simply because a wide range of viewers that are likely to be interested in the film; it is both entertaining and thought-provoking.
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