The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Every now and then a director comes along in American cinema that changes the way movies are made.  He or she comes on the scene with new insights, innovative visions and a very distinct personal style and we, as audience members fall in love with the cinema all over again. Today, that guy is David Fincher. He did it with Fight Club in 1999. He captivated us with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008. He gave us a fast-paced, entrancing history lesson into our current social lives with his take on how Facebook began and how its often callously perceived inventor became the youngest billionaire in the world, with it all happening only seven years before the film’s debut. This film was 2010’s The Social Network. On December 21, 2011, Fincher made his mark again with his portrayal of the gripping best-selling novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, again solidifying his place in Hollywood and his place in cinema history. Fincher proved again, he’s here to stay.

Just like a great director only comes on the scene every blue moon, so does a great actress. In Dragon, that actress is Miss Rooney Mara. Mara auditioned for two and a half months amongst major Hollywood players like Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart and Natalie Portman for the coveted role of Lisbeth Salander.  Fincher undoubtedly made the right choice. She is absolute perfection in the role. Salander is the perfect hero. The perfect heroine. Her physical and emotional androgyny allow her to be both, making this film so intriguing for male and female audiences. Salander is a 24 year old social outcast, mostly by choice, deemed mentally incapable by the government of Sweden.  She has been used and abused throughout her life, some of which you read in the book, and see in the film quite explicitly,  and she does not get emotional. She never gets emotional after such abuses. She gets even. There is a quality to Lisbeth that is less than human. She might be described as a lowly crusader, abandoned by the world around her, but yet takes on its problems with fearless courage.  We watch her avenge her abuses and the abuses of those around her without wincing. She is violent and her techniques for taking on crime are unorthodox. She’s the perfect villain and the perfect hero all in one. Courageous. Brave. These are understatements in describing Lisbeth. She is a real world super hero with relatable humanistic factors that make us root for her in the story, and we hope and even pray that there might just be a Lisbeth Salander somewhere in our real world. As for new-comer Rooney Mara…she has a very long career ahead of her.

The film is very well-done and it is a very well-made adaptation of the book. The book is lengthy and it is filled with several storylines and minute details and as jarring as the twists and turns that arise from such plot detailing are, it is also what makes the book great. A film however, in order to keep the audiences attention, cannot have such detailing, or the film literally would have been about 4 to 5 hours long. Fincher made a few plot changes from the book to the film, but overall, they were better choices for the movie.

The cinematography is beautiful. The mood set for the film is classic Fincher. Dark lighting and undertones, rugged, yet detailed set-design, fluid camera, and edgy, but up tempo music all keep the plot flowing. The flow of the storyline, juxtaposed with Fincher's cinematography choices feel very similar to The Social Network. The opening credit sequence alone hooks you. It’s ominously sexy, and indescribably artistic and sets the tone for the rest of the film.

For those that have read the book, Fincher does an impeccable job with choices of setting and character. Strangely, the locations described in the book and the main characters that inhabit them are exactly as I pictured them. In the book you are able to get inside the mind of each character. I know what kind of person deeply inside and out that financial reporter, Mikael Blomkist (Daniel Craig) is because the book tells me.  I know the inner-workings of Salander’s mind and all of her complexities because the book explicitly describes them. Rarely is a movie able to capture the description and vivid detailing of a book so well. Fincher accomplishes a great feat with this film. As an audience member, even having not having read the book, you are able to get to know these characters. Fincher leaves room for the next two films in the trilogy, however, which I think is a good thing. At times, I felt the book may have been too detailed. Fincher lets you breathe in the film. The characters have room to grow both on screen and in your mind. In this first installment, Fincher gives you just enough insight, just enough sex, just enough danger, and just enough brutality to entice your curiosity for the rest of the trilogy.

See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. There is no debating it. Just see it.