The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a film that rests on its own laurels. It operates within the parameters of reality, but still succeeds in relying on its own characters and its own separate plot(s) to push the film along.
The film starts off right away during a court hearing about an investigative reporter who is being brought to trial for reporting libel information about a wealthy tycoon. It is in this moment you are introduced to one of the protagonists of the film Mikael Blomkvist (the reporter). You see that he is obviously a man that knows defeat when it's presented to him but he takes it with a certain poise and silent dignity that obviously let's you know he's a man of modest feelings and some intellect. Next, you meet the "l337-goth-hacker" Lisbeth Salander (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). She embodies the character of an emotionally damaged individual as her "goth-ness" implies, she's very quiet and keeps to herself and is always shrouded in black and a hood which implies she's an introverted individual, but her key skill makes her very valuable in the eyes of the wealthy for she is a brilliant hacker.
The film centers on these two characters and their ability to see more than what's on the surface.
Although, Mikael's been sentenced to prison he is still hired by a billionaire by the name of Henrik Vanger to investigate a 40yr old case in which his favorite neice went missing without a trace; and to this day he still is obsessed with finding her dead or alive. With his prison sentence looming over him Henrik Vanger hires Lisbeth to spy on Mikael to judge whether or not he is capable of handling the case. Here we begin to see another dimension of Lisbeth for she not only spies, but also helps out Mikael, does this mean she has a soft spot for bringing the guilty to justice? I believe so.
The characters eventually meet in a very casually executed scene and then eventually team up to solve the murder mystery.
Their characters are very real; not perfect looking like how a typical Hollywood film normally portrays their characters in a movie, Mikael's profile fits the bill perfectly on how one would imagine an investigative reporter to look like in his middle ages and Lisbeth is far from the cultural standard of "beautiful" with her short hair, facial piercings, rippling muscles and even armpit hair. Another notable feature of this film is the very obvious presence of the Mac OS X in which the characters use what I think is Photoshop to analyze photographs, it gives it a very authentic feel.
One of the great things about this film is how they develop the characters, so that the audience has a good idea of their past, present and future. It's like you get to know them and judge them based on your own intuition, which makes the film that much more exciting because you're looking forward to their interactions.
With its running time of 148mins one would hope the payoff of an otherwise considered "long" movie is well worth the time. This film not only succeeds in delievering a successful plot, but it somehow marginalizes the film into what actually felt more like a film that barely reaches the 2hr mark.
The film is in Swedish, so it is going to take borrowed effort for the audience to enjoy it since you have to *gasp* read.
4/4
-DK
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