I saw this film in theatres when it premiered and now I had the chance to get my own copy on Blu-ray and watch it, no, experience it again. And it was nothing less of amazing on the second time.
Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomqvist, who is hired to investigate a 40-year-old murder mysery by Henrik Vanger (superb Christopher Plummer). After being publicly humiliated and prosecuted by the media, Blomqvist retreats to an isolated island where the Vanger family live and where the murder took place. At the same time, a young hacker named Lisbeth Salander (even more superb, the I-have-no-words-for-it-superb Rooney Mara) is struggling with difficulties of her own. The two come together and find out what really happened on the island when young Harriet Vanger was murdered.
David Fincher is at his best when dealing with sick and twisted people and sick and twisted storylines (see Se7en). He knows exactly how to show sex, violence and perversion, without making it seem too extreme, but just extreme enough and maybe a bit more even. His use of camera (Jeff Cronenweth did an amazing work) and lighting is innovative and they are used in the best way possible; they bring more to the story. The lighting is often cold and leave shadows where evil can lurk, strenghtening the idea that the characters in the film have something they want to hide, leave in the shadows.
Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall's editing is once again pitch perfect. I had lost my hope that they could win an Oscar two years in a row, but thankfully, they did and they earned it.
In my eyes, this is film is almost perfect when talking about the technical side. Of course, there are a few mistakes, trees having leaves even though it's supposed to be winter etc. but those mistakes are always going to be present when making films, you can't escape making mistakes.
The film's cast is... absolutely amazing. Young Rooney Mara steals the show as Lisbeth Salander and is provided with a lot of support from veteran actors like Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgård. Daniel Craig is known as an action hero, but shows his ability to do more than just throw punches and high kicks.
Daniel Craig shows us that he's not just James Bond, he can transform himself to play another character. I just wish he had transformed himself a bit more physically. His arms and chest look too worked out and his posture is a bit too straight for a tired, failed journalist. But emotionally, I think he captures the essence of his character quite well. He paints a portrait of a flawed man, who has nothing to lose and a need to make himself relevant to the world after being publically castrated by the media. He also gives great support to Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander, but ultimately fails to provide a performance strong enough to match Mara's fierce Salander.
Rooney Mara. What can be said... If Katniss Everdeen was "The Girl on Fire" in Hunger Games,then Lisbeth Salander is the Fire. This is a very extreme character to play, it's a very physical role but also a very emotional role. But what makes it so impressive that Mara can capture Salander's emotional vulnerability and strenght even when the character shows very little emotion on her face.
I think this Lisbeth Salander has become every woman's guilty pleasure or fantasy. We all want to be her, but surprinsingly we also want her. Why is that? She provided a new beauty icon for women. She is fearless and has sex with whoever she wants. She is comfortable with her own body. She is sort of a Samantha Jones 2.0 if you will. And of course, she is insane, which isn't ideal but you can't have everything.
The role of Lisbeth Salander is a very physical one, for which you need a strong actress for. Mara looks very fragile, like she would break if you knocked her down. But because her presence is so strong, she turns this quality into a strenght as opposed to letting it be a weakness for her. Salander seems to be driven by sex, violence and everything that is wrong in our eyes and that is the key to her. Wrong is all she knows and it brings her safety and more importantly freedom. Her freedom was taken away from her at a very young age and now she gets her freedom and independence by doing things that are borderline wrong or completely wrong. If she were to follow society's rules, she would see herself as a puppet with chains around her neck. So she breaks these chains and goes the other way.
There will always be comparison made between this film and the original. Shocking. The biggest one will be the differences between Rooney Mara's Salander and Noomi Rapace's Salander. Even though I love Rapace's take on the character, it will always be seen as "the original", I prefer Mara. Mara makes the character feel more insane, to the point where you question if she even has any human emotions left in her. Is she a human or has she become a machine. And still, we all want her. And that is impressive.
The film is almost perfect. There is something that I don't like about the ending, but I can't putmy finger on it. Maybe it's the fact that the climax isn't so... climatic. The scene in the dungeon, although being very interesting, lacks intensity like Daniel Craig's characters lacks oxygen. It needed more, it didn't match either or the raping scenes and therefore, felt out of place. The film is also quite long and tones down quite a bit after Salander arrives on the island. After being introduced such an intense character, so capable of doing horrible thing, the perverted side of us wants to see more of it and this is where Fincher lets us down. Of course, he is following a book, but still, we demand more extreme violence and Salander!
This film was marketed as a murder mystery, which I believe, was misleading. The murder mystery is just something that brings our two characters together. The viewer feels a bit confused when the mystery is solved and all is well and then we have another 15-20 minutes to go with footage that has nothing to do with the Vangers, but with Lisbeth and Mikael. It was good 20 minutes, but when you go see a murder mystery, you expect the film to end when you find out who the killer was. So this film should have been marketed as an interesting story about two very interesting characters, because that's where the film focuses on and is at its' best.
All in all, I think this was one of Fincher's best when talking about style, but it could have used even more edge in the end. But still, I think this was one the best films of 2011 (Drive taking the trophy home...) and we can only hope that there were more filmmakers like David Fincher making films this good.
-CoffeeCat
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