Dir: Niels Arden Oplev /Writer: Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg / Cinematography: Jens Fischer and Eric Kress
Lisbeth gets some medical attention (image: Worthing Theatres FlickrCC)
Beautiful, brutal and unforgiving. This description could as easily fit the film or the (anti)heroine of this dark, visceral Swedish thriller.
Like police thriller Wallander before it, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based on a series of best-selling novels that show a very different Sweden from the stereotypical sexy blondes with happy smiles. Instead we get monosyllabic cyberpunk geeks and dishevelled investigative journos alternately roaming gritty urban streets and breathtaking desolate icy tundra.
The plot twists and turns, picking up interwoven strands across four decades. At its heart is the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a teenage girl in the 1960s and a last ditch attempt, by her wealthy uncle Henrik, to find out what happened to her. But there’s also the interplay between Mikael the disgraced journalist hired to investigate (Michael Nyqvist) and the brilliant, but damaged, Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) who comes to help him.
Complex, but beautifully structured and intensely compelling, it holds the attention span with its fully rounded characters, twisted humour and genuinely shocking elements of violence.
In the manner of all the best thrillers ultimately you care less about “who dunnit” and more about how the film gets there. That, of course, is mainly due to the captivating central performances put in by Nyqvist and Rapace – never slipping into melodrama or caricature. Even when the plot takes a slight gothic turn they remain thoroughly believable.
A sensational film – though not for the squeamish. Now let’s see if Hollywood screws up the remake…
Rating: 4/5
IMDb entry for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Tags: crime thriller, drama, Ingvar Hirdwall, Lena Endre, Marika Lagercrantz, Michael Nyqvist, Niels Arden Oplev, Noomi Rapace, Peter Andersson, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube
