- Hey, who put all this Nazism and rape in my otherwise enjoyable murder mystery? The answer is the late author Stieg Larsson whose novel "Men Who Hate Women" is presumably one of the better examples of literary truth-in-advertising. I say "presumably" because I haven't actually read the book, but I have now seen David Fincher's film adaptation that borrows the more marketable title of the novel's English translation, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I suppose it's important to note firstly that Larsson claimed to have written the source material in part to combat the spread of domestic violence and racism that sharply contrast with this American's impression of Sweden as a utopia of meatballs, minimalist furniture, and lutfisk. So his intentions were apparently good, even if the subject matter was rather lurid. Whether or not the same can be said of Fincher's film is a matter of some debate.
- The story revolves around two very different types of detective, the now-famous misanthropic Europunk investigator Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) and her muse and partner, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). Even before various horrors befall Salander onscreen, we gather that she's had a rough life. These days, she's scraping by as a tech-savvy sleuth, which is how she first gets to know Blomkvist. In fact, by hacking into his various electronic accounts and conducting surveillance, she gets to know him without his knowing about her. Such information is useful to the uber-serious business manager Dirch Frode (Steven Berkoff), whose benefactor, the wealthy Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), wants to hire Blomkvist to solve a 40-year-old murder. Given Blomkvist's recent humiliation in a very public libel lawsuit, doubtless he'll be willing to travel to northern Sweden to hear Vanger out.
- It turns out that the Vanger family has its problems, too, putting it mildly. The kindly patriarch Henrik certainly seems like the most decent member of the clan, although his nephew Martin (Stellan Skarsgård) also gives a positive first impression. Outside of them, however, the Vangers are a collection of unrepentant anti-Semites (Per Myrberg), embittered women (Geraldine James), and mysterious exiles (Joely Richardson). As Blomkvist wryly notes, the Vangers are best defined by who in the family they refuse to speak to. Still, the strangest thing about the Vangers may be the fact that all of them agree that someone in the family murdered Henrik's niece Harriet forty years ago. With so many likely suspects, it's difficult to identify who exactly committed such a heinous crime, assuming that such a crime even took place, that is.
- Well, somehow I've gotten this far in the review without mentioning the crimes that definitely do take place within the timeline of the film. You see, the person in charge of Lisbeth's finances is an awful man named Nils Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen). To say that Bjurman takes advantage of his position is a gross understatement. In fact, he demands sexual favors for the release of Lisbeth's monetary allowance, and things quickly go from bad to worse. In the film's most explicit and brutal scene, he handcuffs Lisbeth to the bed and rapes her. The film's second-most explicit scene follows shortly afterward, depicting Lisbeth's equally brutal revenge. I'm sorry, are we supposed to be cheering at this point?
- And therein lies the problem with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. On one hand, it sets up a fairly interesting locked room (or, in this case, island) mystery set in a beautifully desolate part of the world where you can hear icy winds cutting through imperfectly closed doors. On the other hand, the same sound team that handled the arctic wind so well also had the honor of reproducing the noise a dildo makes when forcibly shoved up a fat man's ass (twice). No matter how good the film looks from its music video opening sequence onward, how great Rooney is as an asocial instrument of vengeance, or how convincing Craig is as a bookish newspaperman whose glasses always dangle from a different part of his face, I found it impossible to get past the film's overwhelming depravity. In this sense, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is an unfortunate microcosm for the careers of both Fincher and soundtrack co-composer Trent Reznor. I love much of their work and consider them both to be major talents, but each could use a reminder that repellence is not always a virtue.
- Based on the novel, as mentioned.
