Whipped Cream Difficulties

Here are my total lack of qualifications for reviewing this movie:

• I have not read this, or any of the Stieg Larsson books. I have heard people I trust say they’re great. I have heard people I trust say they are awful and overrated. I have heard people I trust say they may have been better in the original Swedish, but Larsson was poorly served by his English translators. My mother wanted to see this because she tried to read the book and couldn’t get more than 20 pages into it.
• I have not seen any of the Swedish movie adaptations of the books.
• I’m way behind in my David Fincher. I liked “Se7en“, but haven’t seen anything since. I missed “Zodiac” when it was in the theater (I really should get the DVD), and I have “Fight Club” on (the extra-special) DVD, but haven’t watched it yet. I had no interest in “The Social Network“, and I heard strongly negative things about “Benjamin Button“.

All that aside, I thought “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was a solid 3 – 3 1/2 star movie. I didn’t feel like I spent my $7 in vain, and the actual movie going experience was pleasant enough. (Of course, not everyone is lucky enough to have the Alamo Drafthouse.)

I did have a few quibbles and problems with the movie. I’m going to put those after a jump, even though I’m going to try to avoid major spoilers (there may be some minor ones).

1. The central mystery isn’t much of a mystery. I guessed the resolution as soon as Henrik Vanger outlined Harriet’s story. After that, it basically boiled down to “why” and “how”, and the “how” part wasn’t surprising. The “why” part shouldn’t have been, either, because…
2. There’s a lot of rape in this movie. A lot of rape. (This shouldn’t have been a surprise; after all, the original Swedish title translates to “Men Who Hate Women”.) I think my mother was more disturbed by the lesbian sex scene than by the rape scenes, or by the Blomkvist – Salander sex scene. In any case, yeah, probably not a ideal movie to take your mom too. (I kind of knew that going in, but she wanted to see it. Since she only got 20 pages into the book, she wasn’t aware it was as rapey as it is.)
3. This is probably a plot aspect of the book, but it sure seems like it took a long time to bring Blomkvist and Salander together as collaborators on the mystery…
4. …which made the movie a little slower paced than I would have liked.
5. Speaking of pacing, it took close to two hours to reveal the resolution of the central mystery. Fine, no problem. But then we spent close to another half-hour after that on the Salander – Wennerström plot line. I don’t have a problem with long movies; “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is exactly as long as “There Will Be Blood”, and I was mesmerized by the latter. The Salander – Wennerström plot line in “Tattoo”, on the other hand, just isn’t as interesting. I was shifting impatiently in my chair, saying to myself, “Come on, Fincher, wrap this up already.” That probably could have been cut by a good 10 minutes if Fincher had dropped some of the shots of the bewigged Salander going in and out of buildings and up and down in elevators.
6. This aspect of the plot may be resolved in the subsequent books (and movies), but: where did the money go? (More specifically, what did Salander do with it? Did it go into her pocket? Did she give it to charity?)
7. Question: is Salander supposed to be actually insane? Or is she driven to apparent insanity by abuse from the men in her life? Or is she just a high-functioning Aspergian?
8. If she’s so damaged, why does she hop into bed with Blomkvist? Frankly, I don’t buy the whole Blomkvist – Salander romantic relationship; I’m more easily able to buy them as work partners than as lovers. This may relate to one criticism I’ve seen of the books: Blomkvist is Larsson’s “Mary Sue”, complete with youthful lover.
9. Of course, we get a “fallacy of the talking killer” violation. (I suppose this isn’t technically a “Tuco’s Law” violation, since the killer doesn’t use his gun.) I am willing to grant Fincher a great deal of credit, however, for avoiding “Jack in the Box” syndrome. No “he’s dead, wait he’s alive, no I just killed him again, oh let’s bring him back once more for a false scare”. Once the killer gets whacked, he’s more or less done for, and flees rather than resisting. (I find both his running away, as opposed to an extended scuffle, and his ultimate demise plausible given the preceding events.) (By the way, Roger, it would be really awesome if you could add links to the individual entries in your glossary.)
10. I am also willing to grant Fincher a lot of credit for not showing how Salander does much of what she does. For example, she supposedly has access to Wennerström’s computer, and those of his accountants and lawyers, as well as Blomkvist’s, but we never see how she did this. I think Fincher made the right choice here; most film depictions of hacking are embarrassing, and there are few things more boring than watching people bang on keyboards. (There is one scene involving Wennerström’s basement and the networking equipment there, which I found at least superficially plausible. Indeed, I can see exactly how you’d build something like that, maybe using a Nokia N900 and an external USB-Ethernet adapter. Possibly also an external 802.11 adapter as well, for additional range. After all, you’re in a basement. Battery power shouldn’t be an issue, since you should be able to tap into AC power.)
11. I’ve never been a big Trent Reznor fan, but I liked that version of “Immigrant Song” enough to buy it from Amazon.

So, yeah, overall, 3 1/2 stars. Most of my quibbles with the movie, as far as I can tell, are things that carry over from the book. (I did read the Wikipedia plot synopsis after seeing the movie. So shoot me.) I’m not sure if I’ll go see the adaptations of the other movies; I think it depends on who ends up directing and various other factors. (Hmmmm. If Fincher doesn’t want to direct the second and third movies, who would be good candidates? What would a Terry Gilliam “The Girl Who Played With Fire” be like?)

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 10:08 am and is filed under Books, Geek, Movies, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.