Directed by Daniel Alfredson
Written by Jonas Frykberg based on the novel by Stieg Larsson
Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyquist, Lena Endre, Peter Andersson, Georgi Staykov
129 minutes
Released in US, July 2010
If the GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO had elements of the traditional country house mystery, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE feels more like a conventional police procedural/thriller. Of course running through both films (and the third) is the story of an abused child/woman and how that abuse has shaped her. Larsson first title for his series: MEN WHO HATE WOMEN sums up his most important theme.
We know the cast better now, so some of the “getting to know you” aura of the first film is gone. I’m told by two avid fans of the series that saw the film with me about half of the book is missing here: especially the fleshing out of a lot of secondary characters and a fuller exploration of the sex trade trafficking and the politics involved in dealing with it. I’m not sure if these omissions were important ones.
PLOT: Lisbeth Salander, on a year’s hiatus from her murky past in Stockholm, is framed for the murder of two journalists who were exposing a sex-trafficking ring for Millennium Magazine. When her warden is murdered too that’s included in the felony charges. Along the way, she meets up with her past and must rescue both herself and her friends with the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist.
If THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE is somewhat of a letdown, coming on the heels of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, it was pretty much inevitable. The director has completely succumbed to Rapace’s charms and lingers too lovingly on every move she makes. However, she is also its biggest asset along with Nyqust as Mikael Blomkvist. The story also seems overly reliant on what are now stereotypes in police procedurals. I could have done with a few less scenes of graphic torture, too.
However, it’s an exciting film, well-made and well-cast. If it fades a bit in comparison to the first of the trilogy, it still offers a multitude of pleasures for $12.
Patti
Patti Abbott writes crime fiction short stories. She hosts a look at Forgotten Books every Friday with readers, writers and reviewers at http://www.pattinase.blogspot.com/ She hopes you’ll join in.
Just saw it. Liked it.
Biggest flub: a character is hit with a stun gun and it doesn't cause his muscles to so much as twitch. Stun guns are not instruments of pain so much as of near-electrocution. Substitution of nearly any other nonlethal weapon in that scene would've worked better.
Best injoke: Salander's pseudonym for the purposes of her second apartment in the film is "V. Kulla"…a callback to Pippi Longstocking's dwelling, Ville Villekulla.
Best elision from the novel…no breast implants. My filmgoing mate Alice tells me Larssen spends three chapters on this. So that we would know what he liked in women (THE MEN WHO LIKE MAMMARIES).
Better lesbian makeouts. The events of this one seem slightly less unlikely than the events of THE MEN WHO HATE WOMEN/THE [WOMAN] WITH DRAGON TATTOO, even if the fact that this is the middle film of three is very much apparent.
I take this back…biggest flub: worse subtitling than in the first film, most obviously in the tyro's trick of using white subtitles against a white background Way too often (at all is too often, of course). Very amateur hour, that.
We saw it in a matinee with three very well-behaved teenagers down the other end of our short row, and a host of idiotic older folks behind us, who, for example, thought it hilariously shocking that Salander doesn't keep her underarms completely shaved. And said so quite volubly.
I've gathered the V. Kulla injoke is not quite as thrown away in the novel, and is more shared between Salander and Blomquist.