Coming from a week full of comedies, I wanted to get a little serious for this week. I didn’t want to go too serious though. My first encounter with the Stieg Larsson trilogy books was a few years ago during high school. When I have nothing to do in the mall, I always hung out in book stores to see potential good books to read. I came across The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it immediately struck me. Random beat-down journalist meets underground genius hacker investigating a missing person’s case. Mysterious story with twist and turns. I was always into that.
Apparently, as a friend of mine mentioned, this movie showed a few nights ago on HBO. Seeing as I’ve always wanted to see it, so I decided to watch the movie adaptation of the Larsson book for today. As I’ve said previously, the story was about journalist Mikael Blomkvist as he gets hired to investigate the disappearance of Harriet Vanger over 40 years ago. He gets the assistance of a genius hacker vigilante, Lisbeth Salander. As they go deeper into the investigation, they unravel a new layer of mystery every time leading to a very deep family secret. Blomkvist is played by Mr. James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, while Salander was played by a relatively underground actress, Rooney Mara. Craig was his usual broody self and Mara adopted the damaged punk boy look to perfection.
Forgive me, but I wasn’t really paying 100% attention to the first hour of the movie. Running for 158 minutes, I’m pretty sure the first hour is usually spent on introducing the characters and the story. I still find it confusing why Blomkvist was the chosen one for a missing person case. I know he was desperate and given an offer he can’t refuse, but why him? What made him so good and different from any other investigator? Even more so, what made them think that a random journalist could solve a case undone for the past 40 years? Perhaps this was explained in the book or in the movie if I paid better attention. These are some random head-scratching observations while I was watching the movie.
From what I’ve seen the whole movie revolved around the topic of sexual abuse. Doing a little research (on Wikipedia), I found out that Stieg Larsson’s background for writing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was witnessing the gang rape of his friend Lisbeth. He claimed to have stood by overwhelmed by the men and events. Wracked with guilt, he named his heroine after her. I’m not sure how authentic this story is, I guess we’ll never really know. Interestingly enough, Lisbeth Salander is also a rape victim. According to the story, she really had plenty of misfortunes in life which left her damaged. She was forced to do sexual favors by her legal guardian in exchange for food money. At one point, she gets raped on the way to get her money from him. Hearing and watching her screams was quite a disturbing moment to witness. Good thing for her, the event didn’t leave her down in the dumps (perhaps she’s been through worse?). She fought back another day to exact revenge by doing to him much worse than what he did to her. Even the brother of the missing Harriet, who the audience previously perceive as a good guy helping Blomkvist, turned out to be serial rapist and sex offender, keeping the girls in his hidden dungeon. He claims to have followed in the footsteps of his messed up rapist father who did the same thing in the past. Near the end, the audience finds out that the reason Harriet went missing was to run away from her father and brother, both who sexually and physically abused her. I guess some families, even the wealthy, can be pretty messed up too. Side note: I was a little uncomfortable with all the nudity and sex happening in the movie. Seeing as it revolves around rape, nudity and sex was quite a common occurrence. But I guess I have no right to feel uncomfortable since the story was tackling about sexual abuse.
Honestly from the first hour, I thought the movie was going to be boring. Boy how wrong was I! The story seemed to suck me in as the duo were getting closer and closer to finding out the truth. If you haven’t been paying attention to what I wrote: forcing a person to undergo a sexual act without his/her permission is bad and you should never do it! I’m aware that the trilogy has already been adapted to film in Sweden. I’m not sure how it went. So if there’s anybody who is reading this and have watched those three movies, message me! I would like to commend the performance of Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. I saw her versatility with how she portrayed the character. Not only did she play the daunting role of the broken down rape victim to perfection, the audience also saw that she can play the good-hearted friend/lover. I love how, amidst all the craziness happening, there still managed to be a romance between the two main characters. Rooney Mara really went all around with this role. I think it’s a travesty that she didn’t win the Academy Award for Best Actress back in 2011. I also like to commend Steve Zaillian for doing a swell job putting life to the novel, winning an Academy Award for Best Film Editing. After watching the movie, it brought me back to my first encounter with the book. Why the hell did I not buy it? I, along with many others, surely would have enjoyed the trilogy. Looking forward to the second movie! Hopefully I can read the books first.
One Movie A Day 