Originally titled, Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, (Men Who Hate Women), and translated into English the book and movie were renamed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the book turned movie written by deceased Stieg Larsson is about sadists and masochism. The story is about a young girl with a mysterious past in a mental institution, a defamed journalist, and an old man in search of his long lost niece. The adventure begins with Mikael Blomkvist (Meek-ail Bloom-fist) a journalist being prosecuted in court by a Hans-Erik Wennerström (Venner-strum) for libel. Mikael has published an article in his journal called Millennium, but the article turned out too good to be true and now Mikael has to go to jail.
Enter Lisbeth Salandar, a mysterious, short, gothic, young girl, working for Milton Security – a highly prestigious firm – as one of their “most talented” researchers. She is quiet, anti-social, and recieves a call from an agency that tells her that her guardian has had a stroke and she will recieve a new one. She is apparently surprised by this news and the audience becomes aware of her past in the “system.” At Milton, she has been hired to look into Mikael Blomkvist’s past by Dirch Frode (Dier-che Froda). Frode is not blown away by his first impression of Lisbeth – in fact, he is quite skeptical that a small goth girl could have done this type of work. This frustrates her and she becomes angry at him. Pissed off, she quickly exits the meeting, confessing that she thinks Wennerström set Blomkvist up.
Frode hires Blomkvist to work for his client Heinrich Vanger, an old billionaire who’s company is currently run by his nephew Martin. He hires Blomkvist to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his niece, Martin’s sister, Harriet.
The story quickly uncovers hideous mysteries and keeps truly to the book’s original story. The film, like all movies do, leaves out unnecessary details and inserts certain things that move the plot faster. The story does a fantastic job of slightly hinting at the coming story in little dreams that Lisbeth has, it plays on the fact that if you’ve read the books you know what it’s about and if you haven’t they still intrigue you.
When I walked into the Michigan for a matinee of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the theatre was packed sky high. The majority of the patrons were either over 55 or in high school. When the movie started, you could immediately tell that most of the movie-goers had read the book and as the movie came to a close a laugh rolled through half the audience before the screen announcer started the punchline. Sony originally wanted to dub it when it came to American theatres, but due to the outrage of the general public it is happily subtitled, so bring your glasses and get ready for one of the best films of the year.
My advice, the movie was worth my Sunday afternoon and $7.00. See it, read it, perhaps not now but sooner or later.
