The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo
So in this holiday season when movie producers want to wow you with the next big Oscar contender, we find these dark, smart dramas creeping into the fabric of a time when no one was raped in the behind and simple tales of red nosed reindeer or tom hanks as conductor of the polar express used to be all that populated the screens of the local cinema. This year, in tune with those years of old, we have The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. The heartwarming tale of a Swedish family filled with Nazis, murder and missing children. It warms you in ways that hot chocolate cannot. That’s not true of course, this movie is a dark cold movie that chills you with its apparent lack of caring if you like it or not. Everything about this movie is cold, distant and dark. I did read the book first and would recommend anyone who is going to see this movie do so before plunging headlong into the world of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. After all, the movie is 3 hours long (although it doesn’t feel that way in the all important Mr. Unhappy tingly ass test) and to invest that kind of time to a movie you may come out of feeling as though you were raped may not be the way you want to spend a cold winter night.
<<Spoiler Alert to some of the story that is told, no major surprises though>>
The movie (directed by the usually brilliant David Fincher) plunges you into the middle of the action, at the end of a libel trial in which Mikael (007 abs extraordinaire Daniel Craig, for the ladies) has been found guilty. This story, which serves just as a catalyst to get the main character where he needs to go, is mostly glossed over in the movie. More importantly, is that the case is the first string pulled to bring the antisocial and brilliant Lisbeth Salander into Mikael’s life. She carries herself as someone who does not want to be seen and yet screams against the world at large. Lisbeth is first intrigued by Mikael and is eventually drawn to Mikael and desiring of his approval and love. All this I guess as Lisbeth gives nothing away especially as performed by Rooney Mara. The young actress shows in grand fashion what she briefly showed in The Social Network as the object of Eisenbergian obsession; that she is worthy of that obsession. She emotes rather than use dialogue to tell the movie viewer what she is thinking in each instance. As Lisbeth, she has been tortured at the hands of men her entire life and could be looked at as a fragile victim. So when Mikael disrupts her routine and offers her the opportunity to help catch a killer of women, she dives headlong into the project. Lisbeth, as a character in a novel, is remote and distant. Mara captures the essence of her character perfectly, treating the act of looking someone in the eye as a great chore and bending almost too easily to the advances of the guardian who is supposed to protect her best interest. She is a tragic character and we can see that from the first scene.
Craig, for his part, plays Blomkvist admirably and keeps the story of young Harriet Vanger (gone these past 40 years) moving along until he finally teams with Salander and begins the headlong dive into the climax of the movie. It can be hard to seem almost a secondary character in this movie but as with the books, this is Salander’s show and we are only there to bare witness to it. Craig plays it well, the aloof reporter who lulls you into telling him all the salacious family details you have to offer. Stellan Skarsgard appears as the brother of poor Harriet and the seemingly most normal member of this horrific and wicked family. All of the major players came to this movie to elevate. Christopher Plummer plays his character as both strong and completely fragile. Joelly Richardson delivers in a small role as a member of the Vanger family who wants nothing to do with Blomkvist or her family for reasons known only to her. Robin Wright as a weathered newspaper woman trying to deal with Blomkvist’s departure and what it could mean to the future of their magazine gives weight to a character that could easily have been overlooked. There are many scenes that could have become laughable had they not had the correct people playing them. Fincher and Co. hit every character perfectly.
I’ve heard the rumblings in the Steig Larsson underground that complain about Rooney Mara but she convinced me. I’ll admit I have not seen Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth but she would be hard pressed to embody the character as completely as Mara does. For a movie in which she must be raped and be fierce, she accomplishes both sides with ease. Her Lisbeth is smart, calculating and able to transcend the limitations a stoic, anti-social character puts on you. She is laid bare for the world to see and I do not know of another actress who could have carried the weight as she has. She is, after all, the embodiment of a character loved the world over. The most telling sign of an actor for me is whether you can believe them as a character. You look to the completely opposite world of Harry Potter and how Daniel Radcliffe was a great Harry but he was not the Harry Potter you saw when reading the books. Those kinds of limitations to a character can stunt them. The same can be said here for Lisbeth. Can anyone truly occupy the mind of the girl you fell in love with on page? I can’t answer that for you but I can say that Rooney Mara did that for me.
To not talk about the elephant in the room and the explicit sex in the movie would be like ignoring a naked woman walking down the street. Cannot be done. There is an impressive amount of sex (violent sex) in this movie. If the idea of this turns you off but you read the book, it doesn’t go any further than what is in the novel. Seeing it on page or in a dimly lit theater can be different and the American audience will probably not be prepared for this level of sex and nudity. This is easily the most sexually explicit movie I’ve seen in a movie theater since Jason Biggs diddled a pie and Dragon Tattoo goes far beyond that. Sex does not detract from this story but enhances it in ways that were the movie sanitized for your protection from boobies the movie would suffer about as much as Lisbeth’s handsy/rapey guardian. Lastly, I’d offer that a movie needs to have a voice and this film is about the violence of men against women and sexual violence itself. Prepare yourself for that and don’t be a wuss. You can cover your eyes until it is over.
Mr. Unhappy sez: I love me some Lisbeth Salander and as this movie is everything I wanted, I am curious why that group of teenage boys left after all the sex was over?
Golden Unhappy Awards
Most Heartbroken Award – Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander - I know how it feels to meet someone and almost feel connected to them. I also know how it feels to see them feel connected genitally to someone new and she nailed it (figuratively of course).
Up Next: Best of 2011 –Golden Unhappiness for all!
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