Film Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

A punchy name for a book title, a bit of a mouthful but oh-so-perfect once you meet the main character.  However for the purpose of this review and preserving my fingers, lets call it Dragon Tattoo.  Muchier.  Moving right along now, -confession time.  I bypassed the initial book and went straight to film, not the original Swedish version either but the super-sleek-recently-released English one.  Why?  It's 'complicated'.  In truth, I made an attempt to read the first chapter of Dragon Tattoo only to find the translation a little hard going, and I'm not thick... as least, I'm not as thick as the novel itself and lets be honest, its pretty bloody hefty.  As with other books translated from their original language, I always find 'something' missing.  Anyhow, in the end, I happily skipped along to the picture house with my friend G, -who by coincedence didn't bother reading the book either.  Here's G's reasons in his own words:

Me:  Why didn't you read the book?

G: *intake of breath*  Well, I'm actually a book snob - I  *bleep bleep* hate reading a *bleep bleep* book which every *bleep bleep* one else is reading at the same time."

Me:  Hmmm.

G: It's like those bloody Da Vinci books,  I refused to read *bleep bleep* Dan Brown's books."  

Me:  Yeah, I know what you mean.... I just *bleep bleep* Dan Brown."

You can decipher that conversation later, let's get back to Dragon Tattoo - my review.  In a nutshell - its a psychological-crime-thriller centred around a young-troubled-seriously-smart-motorcycle-riding-tattooed-scary-as-bleep-techie-geeky-girl who 'assists' a disgraced journalist with a forty-year-old murder mystery set on a private island, in Sweden, in the dead of winter.

What I liked: 

-  Dragon Tattoo's silky-smooth-inky-black opening credits.  Sublime.

-  Daniel Craig at his best as said disgraced journalist.

-  Rooney Mara is brilliant as the disturbed girl with uber-techie-geekster skills.

-  The CAT (see it to understand), this feline creature has devilish acting abilities.

-  I loved the setting, an unforgiving Swedish winter on a private island, complete with eccentric family members, all carefully guarding their secrets.

-  A talented support cast - Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgard, Christopher Plummer -  all bloody marvellous in their characters.

What I didn't like so much:

- In the darkness of the picture house, I could feel the heftiness of the book pressing down on me.  It was such a complex storyline squeezed into a short time span, I felt my head-spinning with all the sub-plots and characters.  In short, the layers within the plot confirmed my decision not to read the novel.

  

-  Even without reading the novel, you should be able to pick the killer.  I know, I know but I won't spoil it for you.

Overall:  Aside from the screaming-cringing bits when I hid under my coat, I actually sat on the edge of my seat for this one.  Be warned, as a psychological thriller, some scenes are not for the faint-hearted.  I definitely recommend viewing if you enjoy crime fiction and Daniel Craig squirming.  It's a good'un. 

Videocredits via youtube

A/N:  Hello lovelies, I hope your week has been kind and that your writing projects are coming along, swimmingly.  Myself, crazy doesn't quite cover my past week in parallel universes and I've been unable to blog per normal schedule.  I will be moving 'house' this month and as such, I will take a blogging break for the remainder of February.  Don't worry though, I shall be floating in the ether somewhere.  Have a lovely weekend and hope to catch up with you all soon.  Talei xox