The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review
By Simon Jago

Having only seen the opening twenty minutes of the original Swedish on screen adaptation of  Steig Larsson’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, I couldn’t help but feel initially what was the point in this US remake? I questioned why would a big time director such as David Fincher want to put his name to a carbon copy of an already successful foreign movie. If a movie is good, in any language, then surely it doesn’t need re-making, right? Well despite my feelings on this, it wasn’t long before I could see David Fincher’s touch in re-telling this successful story and so I found myself eager to continue.

The story follows the fall from grace of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). Libellist allegations made by Mikael for Millenium Magazine have led to a court trial which he loses. Disgraced and with his career in tatters, Mikael decides to take some time away from the magazine.

It’s during this time that he is contacted by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), a retired CEO who requires Mikael’s investigatory journalist skills to help him solve the thirty-six year old murder of his great-niece Harriet. The list of suspects includes any one of the strange and disturbed members of the Vanger family. Eventually Mikael meets Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a dark and disturbed woman whose unconventional methods end up helping his investigation.

It’s really hard to discuss a remake that is so similar to the original, especially as the success of the Swedish film is still  fairly recent (2009). I think in my mind I wanted to find faults with the film, would it match up to the original? Could it be better? It would have helped if I’d have seen the original in its entirety but the thoughts remained non the less. However, despite all of this prejudged negativity, I found David Fincher’s vision of the story very well made, tense, suspenseful and thoroughly enjoyable.

I suppose it doesn’t matter which version of the film you watch first, if you choose the American remake you will still really enjoy it, although I still fail to see why a successful film such as the Swedish version needed remaking. My verdict, definitely see this film, but make sure you see the original as well…..I guess that’s the next film I’ll be watching.