#102: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Release Date: December 23rd, 2011
Format: Streaming (Max)
Written by: Steve Zaillian
Directed by: David Fincher
4 Stars
My dad has a completely bizarre approach to watching films. He’s one of those guys that completely dismisses entire genres of movies. I’m talking about huge swaths of great films. No matter how good a movie is, he won’t watch it if it’s fantasy or sci-fi, he won’t watch anything animated, he won’t watch most foreign flicks, and last time I saw him he mentioned he doesn’t like any sort of sandals & swords movies either. According to his own bizarre movie ethos he has single-handedly excluded such films as Alien, Toy Story, Parasite, and Spartacus. Well-played dad, well-played.
But all people have their tastes, and if I’m being honest, there are movies that I prioritize over others simply because they fit my personal ethos or aesthetic preferences, rather than having anything to do with the quality of the movie. For example, I’ve never seen Pixar’s Inside Out movies. I’ve heard they’re great, and multiple people who know me have told me that I’d enjoy them. Still haven’t seen them. Why? Again, if I’m being honest, it has something to do with genre and aesthetic. I’m not into them at this time in my life. I’ll get to them when I get to them, and probably regret that I didn’t see them sooner.
On the opposite end of the personal preference spectrum is a movie like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is a movie that I was pushing old women and children out of the way to see opening night. This is a movie that aligns with my aesthetic and tonal preferences and reinforces my ethos and worldview, to the point where the quality of the movie is almost secondary.
What do I find so alluring about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Allow me to discuss the film while also self-assessing my own movie biases:
It has an auteur director (David Fincher) that appeals to my sensibilities. I wrote quite a bit about Fincher in my review of The Killer, but in summation, I would say that I love his control over his stories. When he is working with subject matter that suits him - namely, obsessive protagonists that exercise control or are being controlled - he perfectly marries tone, character, and photography. He’s a great auteur, despite having a narrow thematic range.
Source material that I love. I don’t read much contemporary fiction at all, but I did read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy when it came out. It was an absolute page-turner, while also being intellectually challenging and uniquely structured. They are tremendous books.
One of my favorite screenwriters, Steve Zaillian (Awakenings, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Gangs of New York, Moneyball, The Irishman). I love the balance of a Zaillian script. His character development is incredible, but he is sensitive to pacing and plot. He respects the intellect of his audience, but he’s here to tell a story, not overly philosophize. He’s a great choice of writer to adapt The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
The genre and aesthetic is fun. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a murder mystery procedural on a small island in northern Sweden with a potential serial killer on the loose. Good stuff.
And lastly, this film speaks to how I self-identify. This can be dangerous because it can reinforce a bunch of your own biases, but that said, I think that Steig Larsson and I would have had a lot in common and would have enjoyed discussing our commonalities over low balls of vodka, or whatever they like to drink in Sweden:
Don’t tolerate bullies
Misogyny is disgusting
Fascism is to be mocked
Journalism is essential to democracy
Capitalism is a threat to the environment
Socialism is not perfect, but necessary
Power corrupts, and wealthy industrialists are not immune from such corruption
Literacy is empowering
The “others” of society are valuable
It’s simply a movie that speaks to me. I’ll admit to my own bias.
Unfortunately it didn’t speak to a wider audience. Most mainstream American moviegoers aren’t into anti-capitalist, rural Swedish-set mystery procedurals as I am. The movie underperformed at the box office, the studio wasn’t happy with Zaillian’s script for the sequel, production stalled on a re-write, and Fincher lost patience and went on to make Gone Girl and House of Cards, instead.
This shit really bums me out. As much as I love The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on its own, Zaillian and Fincher did a masterful job setting up for the two sequels. Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander are incredible protagonists, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo only starts to get at their unusual and beautiful partnership. Read the books to get a fuller sense of how deeply heartwarming their relationship ends up being.
When we see Lisbeth heartbroken at the end of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I want to yell out to her before she rides off on her motorcycle, “Wait! There’s supposed to be a sequel where Mikael shows that he does care about you and you go on many more adventures!”
Alas, that can’t happen. Instead Lizbeth disappears into the dark streets of Stockholm, alone. And The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, abandoned amid studio politics, fittingly disappears into the darkness alone, too.
