The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Book, Swedish Movie & American Movie – Noomi & Rooney
On December 31, we completed our The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy; the Stieg Larsson book in 2009, the Swedish movie in 2010 and the American movie in 2011.
As everyone in Scandinavia knows and most everyone in the rest of the western world knows, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book in the posthumously published Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. It was an instant success published in Sweden and received the best crime novel of the year award in 2006. As it was released in other European countries, it continued to win prizes. Larsson was awarded an ITV3 (British TV) International Author of the Year in 2008, almost four years after he died in November 2004.
When The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released in the United States in September 2008, it received nixed-reviews by NY Times’ Alex Berenson, The Los Angeles Times and the Simpsons writer, Matt Selman. These reviews were either not read or ignored and the book shot up the Best Seller Lists and has sold over 15 million copies, propelling the 2nd and 3rd books of the series to similar recognition and sales.
The story centers on Mikael Blomkvist, a writer-editor of the investigative journal Millenium, and his search for a solution to a 40 year old “Locked Room” mystery of the disappearance of a teen-aged girl member of the prominent Vanger family. The character that propels the story, and is forever memorable, is Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old computer hacker, a tattooed asocial punk driven by her vindictiveness due to a tragic past. Larsson’s Salander was inspired by Pippi Longstocking.
We loved the book and bought and loved the two other books of the trilogy as soon as they were available.
The Swedish movie (2009) was released in the USA in 2010. It starred Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, Michael Nvqvist as Mikael Blomkvist and Lena Endre as Erika Berger. Directed by Niels Arden Opley, with music by Jacob Groth and cinematography by Eric Kress. The movie followed the book faithfully in storyline and mood. All of the actors seemed to step out of the novel onto the screen. Noomi Rapace, of a Swedish mother and Spanish father, possibly part Roma, is Lisbeth Salander.
We loved the movie and have seen it twice – so far. It will rise to the top of our Netflix queue early next week for another viewing.
So, how do we feel about the American version?
David Fincher (dark, stylish thrillers; The Social Network) directed the American version. Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay. Daniel Craig was an excellent Blomkvist. The Erika Berger part while important is the Swedish version was a particularly weak here. One exceptional scene is the rape of Lisbeth; it is a horrific portrayal not sexual. The music score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross was somewhat disruptive, like it was for another movie. In spite of that, Critics Choice nominated it for Best Score.
Lisbeth Salander, the character that makes the novel and Swedish movie outstanding, is played by Rooney Mara in the American version. (How’s that, Rooney replaces Noomi?) While Mara plays the “part” well and portrays a fierce Lisbeth, there are no glimpses of the damaged, vulnerable Lisbeth felt in the book and Swedish film that make up her special humanity.
So, how do we feel about the American version? It’s okay, but not in the authentic and memorable way that the Swedish version is. We had the feeling when we left the theater, that if you were one of the few people that hadn’t read the book or seen the Swedish movie you might not really understand the plot.
