Academic

Not-so-Family Film Blogging: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

Sometime in the past year, Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy became like Twilight for the middle-aged.  Not to be left behind on any trend, I jumped on the Lisbeth Salander bandwagon with a vengeance.  Americans, as usual, are late to this party, and before we even read the third book by the deceased Swedish author, three Swedish-language movies had already been made from the books.  And interestingly, Larsson's true life story, both before and after his death, are now the subject of a documentary, which will be screened here in C-U on Monday.  And of course, Hollywood is now cranking out its own movies based on the books, starring Daniel Craig and (announced this week) Rooney Mara.

At the same time, the art theater here is showing the Swedish films.  So, last week we took in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and next week we are headed to see The Girl Who Played With Fire.  If you haven't read the books yet, but are planning to once you return home from the space station, feel free to not peek below the fold:

The movie is very good.  You actually don't have to have read the books to enjoy the movie, but I think that experience would be very different.  The book is overly long, and with desperate need of an editor.  The movie does a lot of editing, and it still works.  There is no head of Milton Security plot line.  There is no depiction of Lisbeth's first guardian, Palmgren, or any of her friends except Plague.  There is very little Erica Berger plot line.  Blomkvist's daughter does not appear.  None of the problems with Millennium are discussed, including Vanger becoming a partner.  It streamlines the story into a digestible movie, and it works really well.  However, the result is that the movie is really about the Vanger family, whereas the books was about Blomkvist, Salander and [Blomkvist plus Salander], with the Vanger story as a background.  However, it's a good story, so it works.  But, if you really like the Salander and Blomkvist characters, you will be left wanting more, which is probably a good thing for the moviemakers.

(But, don't worry, the plot line about Salander's second guardian, Bjurman, is pretty much all there.  So, brace yourself.)

The funniest change that threw me seemed very Hollywood.  In the books, Blomkvist is this great guy who'll be your best friend, he'll sleep with you if you want to, but he doesn't care if you don't.  He'll stick with you and not ask anything of you at all.  The only thing he won't do is give up Erica Berger, whom he's content to let be married to her husband as long as he can see her every once in awhile.  The only person who doesn't think he's a great guy is his ex-wife, who wasn't as tolerant.  Well, none of this is in the movie.  If you hadn't read the book, you would think that he and Salander may end up married with kids if she can get over her emotional baggage that keeps her from falling in love with him.  He doesn't sleep with Erica; he doesn't sleep with Cecilia Vanger.  We'll see how long he can keep that going in the next installment!

Full post as published by Conglomerate on August 20, 2010 (boomark / email).