Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a huge, best-selling success in America because it hit all the popular American buttons: sadistic killers, a fallen hero with a heart of gold, and lots of sex and violence. And so the cinematic adaptation of Tattoo, while very Swedish in pedigree (the cold, crisp location shots; the subtle performances; the languid pacing of some establishing scenes), is very American in many ways. It’s got a big dumb soundtrack that telegraphs every emotion to the audience with a bullhorn’s intensity, it sports a CSI-style fetishization of gore and suffering that takes great glee in its own nastiness, and it has an unfortunate compulsion to explain everything, treating the audience like dumb children.
Its doofy Americanness is off-putting, but there are plenty of reasons to like Tattoo, too: The plot is intricate and involving (the audience can guess the killer from the very beginning, but the storytelling is compelling enough to maintain interest almost all the way through), the melodrama is appropriately satisfying, and the direction is competent and thoughtful. But the best part of Tattoo, the real reason to watch it, is Noomi Rapace’s turn as Lisbeth Salander, a goth computer hacker who gets involved in the case against her own better judgment. Salander is a juicy character—damaged but strong, sexual and enigmatic—and Rapace’s deft portrayal is a joy to watch. In the early swaths of the film where she doesn’t appear, you miss her and things lag until she appears again.
Salander deserves a better plot. Tattoo has one of those stereotypical mystery-novel endings—things crash to a spectacularly exciting conclusion and then just keep… on… going… in a painfully plodding march of exposition. Each character (including, unfortunately, Salander) gets a pat resolution, and the film drags out a whole other reel after the end of the mystery. A few scenes are gory enough that moviegoers expecting a quaint Swedish mystery romp should be warned in person when the theater employee hands them the ticket (and survivors of rape are advised to think twice before watching Tattoo; one scene could inspire serious trauma). Things move quickly, but the stupidity of the film increases incrementally with each minute of the running time. The American movie trappings are a shame; a nice, languid, smart Swedish version would have been a real beauty to behold. And besides, an American remake is already in the works and scheduled for 2012 release. 
You know why it drags at the end is because there are two more films due out this summer. Lisbeth is a more prominent in the The Girl Who Played with Fire.
Paul, did you like the book?
I really wish they’d showed more of what she did at the end of the book. I thought that was really clever, but it was really neglected in the movie.
I really appreciate a review that is sensitive to those of us who have experienced trauma and can be triggered by violent rape scenes.
Ah crap, say it ain’t so. It could have been so good, damn. I mean, I’m embarrassed to say I loved the book, but in a purely self-indulgent way, for the escapism. Hoped the movie could be as good.
Maybe I’ll see it anyway, in case you’re wrong.
Terrible and disjointed review. I mean most of these problems (plot, pat endings, lots of explanation) exist in the book also. Is the movie actually a let down relative to the book or what?
I saw it Saturday and would say that it has a lot of the same problems that adaptations of long and/or complicated books do: they condense to the point that they are assuming most of the audience will have read the book and will fill in the details of things that are just mentioned briefly in the film.
Some of the omissions make sense, from a no-way-they-could-fit-everything-in standpoint, but it definitely reduces what was such a great spider web of details that really fold together by the end of the book into a traditional plot with a couple of random details thrown in.
I also wish that we’d gotten the true ending of the book instead of the tiny nod to Salander’s amazing exploits. But overall I thought it was a good adaptation, and not American at all. I shudder to think what the US version will be like.
Maybe it was just my American brain translating the novel, but I’ve got to say that I loved this movie because it looked exactly like the book did in my head. How many times do you get to say that about an adaptation?
Also, I appreciated the screenplay essentially excising the “every woman in sight wants to sleep with our hero” thread of the book.
Just saw it and I haven’t read the book…I thought it was great…not quite sure what was that “American” about it…and what the fuck would make it more “Swedish”? A guy with a scythe running around and more turtleneck sweaters? Maybe some Abba on the soundtrack?and, I really don’t get the reference to the music; I didn’t even notice the music. And Noomi Rapace is officially a Major Film Actress; amazing performance.
Please…please…PUHHHHHHLEEEEZZZZ don’t make an American version! You will only screw it up -primarily because American directors can’t think in Europeanf genre.
OK, I finally got to see this last night, and this review is almost entirely wrong. The movie captures the entertaining essence of the novel almost perfectly.
this bit of the review: “…is very American in many ways. It’s got a big dumb soundtrack that telegraphs every emotion…” was the part I feared the most, and is the most outlandish.
It appears that you try to set yourself up as above the fray of mainstream, will only allow yourself to be enthusiastic about some ill-defined aesthetic of which you are the sole judge and gatekeeper; you think you come off as cool by classifying potentially popular films as mainstream, and then ripping them apart.
Too bad; this film is entertaining, and true to the book almost entirely. A true Americanization would have added wholly fabricated love triangles, not removed them, and would have cast hideously beautified famous actors to deliver predictable, pretty portrayals.
This review is wrong in as much as it is critical. The only criticism I can think of is the omission of the backbone of the book: the factual statements at the top of each chapter about violence toward women in Sweden. I have no idea how it could have been included, but it provides a motivation for Lisbeth’s character, and the author’s violent depictions of scenes in the book.
We saw the film after reading all three books. The series explains a lot that is puzzling in the first book or the film, such as who is that guy burning in the car? If possible read the books before you go and the film will be an enjoyable actualization, even though it leaves much out. Noomi Rapace is *perfect* as Lisbeth Salander.