When The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released in theaters in December 2011, it was embraced by critics and audience members alike. David Fincher’s take on the first book in Stieg Larsson’s extremely popular Millennium trilogy is fast-paced, gritty, sexy and intelligent all at once. Starring Daniel Craig as disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as the mysterious cyber hacker wunderkind Lisbeth Salander, the film and its cast ensnare you right from the start, refusing to let you go for the rest of the movie’s two hour and 38 minute runtime. It is a near-perfect mystery film, equal parts hefty and lean in all the right places, which is why it’s such a disappointment that we never got to experience a sequel. Despite its initial commercial and critical success—the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Film Editing—Sony Pictures Releasing eventually made the decision to take things in a different direction, scrapping Fincher, Craig and Mara and replacing them with a much less impressive cast for the release of The Girl in the Spider’s Web. It goes without saying that this movie absolutely blows.
But waxing poetic about what might have been is familiar territory for fans of Fincher’s work, and unfortunately, the sequels to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo rest on the same cutting room floor as a third season of Mindhunter (please, for the love of all that’s holy, David, bring it back). Still, we should be grateful for what we do have: a whip-smart neo-noir that never loses its verve no matter how many times you watch it.
The first half of the film follows the seemingly separate lives of Mikael and Lisbeth. Mikael has recently been forced into hiding after very publicly losing a libel suit against the wealthy, powerful businessman Hans-Erik Wennerström. Reeling from the abrupt end to his career as a journalist, Mikael jumps at the chance to help another wealthy businessman, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Vanger, who lives on an island alongside the rest of his family, wants help solving the decades long mystery of the disappearance of his grandniece Harriet. Though many have tried to uncover the truth about what happened to Harriet, no one has ever been able to, however, Vanger believes that Mikael, whom he knows has been wrongfully convicted in his case against Wennerström, might be the one to finally crack the case.
While Mikael makes himself comfortable in a small cabin on Vanger’s island, Lisbeth lives out her life as a ward of the state back on the mainland. Exceptionally smart with a photographic memory, she makes a living digging up dirt on people in exchange for money. An excellent hacker with a fairly amoral compass, Lisbeth slides through Sweden’s seedy underbelly remaining relatively unbothered. But after her appointed guardian is no longer able to care for her, Lisbeth finds herself under the watch of Nils Bjurman, a rapist who brutally assaults her in exchange for access to her own money. Anyone who has seen this film no doubt has Lisbeth’s revenge scene carved onto their brains as permanently as “I am a rapist pig” is tattooed onto Bjurman’s bare chest. Eventually, Mikael and Lisbeth’s paths intertwine, and they must work together to uncover the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has all the hallmarks of a Fincher film, and in a lot of ways, it feels like the sexier sibling to Se7en. Both films attempt to solve impossible murders and both films revel in the cruel idiosyncrasies of the human psyche—a Fincher trademark. But The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo does so in a way that always feels fresh and new, no matter how many times you watch it. This is due in large part to the undeniable chemistry between Craig and Mara. The two actors embody their roles and their relationship to one another in such convincing ways that it becomes impossible to look away. It’s difficult to imagine the movie with any other actor in their roles, and though the original Swedish version of the film (directed by Niels Arden Oplev) is also very good, it lacks the bite of Fincher’s adaptation that makes it so enticing.
On its surface, Fincher’s film is telling a rather rudimentary story. Two unlikely people team up to solve an impossible crime, only to find out that they actually work extremely well together. It’s a tale as old as time (here’s looking at you Sherlock and Watson), and yet The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is just really damn good. Even now, over 10 years after its initial release, the movie holds up exceptionally well. Maybe it’s because Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross delivered an absolutely killer soundtrack or maybe it’s because the film’s original source material is in and of itself a damn good book (sidenote: Fincher’s adaptation follows the book almost to a T, which is always a good sign). Or maybe it’s just because this is exactly the kind of story that Fincher loves to tell. It refuses to shy away from the gritty realities, choosing instead to place them under a magnifying glass for closer observation. Lisbeth is a goth dream and Craig a moral member of the press. Together, they make up two sides of the same coin. No matter how you flip it, it’s always an absolute win.
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