Daniel Alfredson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest shares many of the same flaws as the Millenium trilogy’s previous installment and then some, leading to a dull thud of a conclusion. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest has little else on its mind except tying up loose ends and concluding a long gestating conspiracy story being spearheaded by some of the most inept shadowy government agents I have ever seen. Whatever suspense or danger that might have pervaded previous installments is completely lacking here as Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) recovers from her injuries from the end of the first film and is on trial for her attempted murder of her father.
The plot mechanics of the film befuddle me but much of that is most likely a lacking in understand of the Swedish judicial system. In either case, the story is dull and lacks any kind of suspense whatsoever. In fact, taking this film and the previous one put together, one could say this would be the trial portion of a Swedish “Law and Order” remake. After the events of the second film, Salander is recuperating while also being held under guard, charged for the attempted murder of her father who, for some reason or another (again, going to have to ask the Swedes on this one), is recuperating at the same hospital. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) takes it upon himself to use his magazine to publicly defend Salander and reveal all the dirty, corrupt practices of shady old white men who have kept her imprisoned and incapacitated for her entire adult life.
The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second installment in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, ditches Niels Arden Oplev, the director of the first installment in the Swedish series, for Daniel Alfredson and while the story is a marked improvement over the drab procedural of the original, Alfredson also trades in some cinematic import for a more TV movie feel. While the story takes up more personal stakes and allows the viewer to enter the head space of Lisbeth Salander, the film’s central heroine, there’s also a lot more needless fat to the story and the kind of sheen that’s more evident on network television. All of the gritty details are left to the story while the film takes a cleaner shine that betrays its gritty details.
A year has passed since the events of the first film and Lisbeth has been living abroad while Mikael Blomkvist is working with a new reporter at his Millenium Magazine hoping to expose a sex trafficking ring. When Lisbeth returns to Stockholm and the young reporter and his girlfriend end up dead, with Lisbeth’s fingerprints on the gun, our two estranged heroes delve into the seedy underground each, separately, trying to prove the young hacker’s innocence. As opposed to the first film which introduced her, this film reveals much of the background and history of its central character and she thusly feels more of an essential character. In the first film, it felt like Lisbeth was little more than a sidekick character to Blomkvist within her own franchise but she takes center stage here revealing interesting details about her past and informing and playing off of events that felt like perfunctory appendages in the first film.
Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander is a hauntingly beautiful coming of age story and one of Bergman’s best. I don’t have the talent or wherewithal to give this movie a proper write up and it’s almost too daunting to even try. Also, in a sense, I feel like I’ve seen an incomplete version of the film as well. Originally conceived and aired as a four part TV movie in Sweden, the film was released in truncated, yet a still three plus hour version in the US. The US version is the one I have seen and despite its epic length, the film still feels rushed. I could feel those missing pieces and otherwise powerful moments just don’t feel as if they are allowed to breathe in the space of the scenes.
A well trod story is a well trod story. A story once told can be retold over and over again with the next teller adding flourishes and brushstrokes that take the material into whole new directions that the original author might never have conceived. It’s the whole purpose of adaptations taking a novel, a comic book, etc. and morphing the original story to fit into an all new medium. And that story once adapted, continues to morph thanks to Hollywood’s dearth of original ideas and continuous lapping at the remake pool. If a story is truly great, it should hold up to any and all of these transformations at its core, even if execution finds itself lacking. A story can be retold over the course of years and decades and its effect won’t necessarily ebb. However, a story told at a constant rate over the course of just a few short years, each telling more hyped and popular than the last, may hinder whatever effect the story had in the first place.
Stieg Larsson’s original novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is not that great story. It’s not even particularly good. It’s at best an OK thriller with a fascinating central character in Lisbeth Salander. But it is that well trod story. Niels Arden Oplev’s original Swedish adaptation of the novel from just a few short years ago was fairly unremarkable but hewed close enough to the source material and has its ardent fans. Noomi Rapace was an outstanding Salander and is probably central to making that role so iconic. Director David Fincher, coming off the near masterpiece of The Social Network, and screenwriter Steven Zaillian, have taken up the unenviable task of adapting an extremely popular novel only a couple of years after an almost equally popular film made in Sweden.
The source material certainly seems in Fincher’s wheelhouse. A crackling investigation into a missing girl case that dovetails into a series of unsolved murders from the director of Seven and Zodiac, this movie should be so much more than the sum of its parts but there is just far too much holding it back, much of it stemming from the novel itself. Story problems plague the book and there’s little the filmmakers can do but steer into the skid. Like the book, the film ends about a half hour after it probably should have. The mystery itself feels stagnant and almost mechanical. The main crux of the story involves the dark and terrible secrets of the Vangers, a family of Nazis and perverts who happen to head one of the bigger corporations in Sweden. Much of the novel involves sifting through old records and getting to know this family one by one as we get to know their sordid history. If anything, it might be the most interesting part of the book. Unfortunately, despite Fincher’s best efforts, these same scenes end up feeling cinematically inert and devoid of character.
Having both read the novel and seen the original Swedish film, Fincher’s film can’t help but feel rote. That’s not to say there aren’t some improvements and special Fincher flourishes that pick the film up and certainly spike interest. It would all be so great if it was for source material that was just a bit better. Fincher builds harrowing scenes around the superb Rooney Mara, ably picking up Rapace’s torch for the tortured Salander, and this is where the film really finds its strides. During much of the first half, Mara is living in her own separate film that only superficially connects with anything that Daniel Craig is doing involving the Vangers and that section is so much better for it.
Because in the end, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is little more than a procedural crime drama that wouldn’t seem out of place on the CBS schedule: CSI: Stockholm. Craig is given the thankless role of Mikael Blomkvist, a scandal plagued financial journalist. The character is the bland hero of the piece but of course all of the “cool” and interesting moments are given to Mara. Craig is fine with the role but there’s only so much one can do while looking studiously over papers and computer screens. Mara, on the other hand, takes the Salander role and truly makes it her own. Rapace was great in the Swedish version and Mara meets that previous iteration beat for beat. She finds new facets of the character and is a worthy successor to Rapace’s performance. Mara emanates control, a strong theme throughout the film. In control of herself and those around her. It’s a fantastic performance and makes the film worth watching on its own.
There is a lot to like in the film but it all feels so unnecessary. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s propulsive score with its low hums and harsh beats pushes the film forward and, as with even Fincher’s lesser work, there’s a certain level of craftsmanship one expects behind the scenes and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn’t disappoint in this regard. But when as bland and uninteresting story as this has been told already, it all feels a waste of a talented filmmaker and cast. But this is the well trod story they chose to tell and it’s not particularly bad. But, unfortunately, it’s a far cry from their best work as well.
A Film Log 