Visceral, Relentless and often uncomfortable but never failing to be engaging. Director David Fincher’s A Girl With A Dragon Tattoo is a masterful piece of film.
I became a big fan of the book mainly because of the draw of the character of Lisbeth Salander. Here we have a female lead who can be both the victim and the tormentor, the sex appeal and the alien, there really is no other character out there to compare her to, and Rooney Mara hits the nail on the head. In Hollywood its too common to see the girl who waits for her knight in shinning armor to save her, or the girl who needs a man to feel happy and complete, frankly its sickening and I have had enough of it, that’s why I was so happy to embrace a character like Salander, who breaks all conventions.
The story is about disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, (Daniel Craig). Craig has the sense here to step down and let Rooney Mara take the spotlight. Blomkvist is recruited by reclusive Swedish tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to come out and investigate the murder of his niece. Vanger is convinced someone in his family of detestable characters murdered his niece back in the 1960s. Blomkvist recruits the help of the talented computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to find the murderer. By itself this plays out as a close door type mystery, the list of suspects are few and their motivations fewer.
What makes Dragoon Tattoo unique here is the focus on Salander with the backdrop of violence against women and what it means to be a victim and how one takes control of one’s own life. One disadvantage of the adaptation to cinema is the lack of time to pause on these situations and take them in, even with a runtime of 2 and a half hours the breakneck pacing leaves no time to reflect.
This isn’t to say Dragoon Tattoo is a perfect film; it suffers from an unbalanced 3rd act that will leave people wondering why the credits did not roll 20 minutes before.
To add a slight disclaimer, this movie contains some very uncomfortable scenes, namely a brutal rape scene. The scene is a testament to the sensibilities of Fincher, as what we don’t see in frame is felt heavier than what we do see; yet the scene still remains brutal to watch.
3 ½ / 4 Stars
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