I saw David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo yesterday.

Spoilers.

I have to start this by saying I’ve not read the books or seen the original films, so am not judging this film in retrospect to its predecessors. Well, I tell a lie, I did read the first couple of hundred pages of the first book but found it a little gimmicky and didn’t like where it was going. It seems like a shame now, because I would’ve loved to have read it first and the narrative actually goes down a route which is my cup of tea exactly… but such is life!

Anyway, I thought this film was brilliant. Firstly, its casting. Rooney Mara is the shining star of the film. I think they made the right decision choosing an obscure actor, particularly when so many of the others who were considered for the part would have been so unsuitable. Her commitment to the role is outstanding, never waiving the disturbed psyche of Lisbeth, keeping substantial difference from a happy reformist Hollywood ending, or revealing too much of her desire for intimacy and affection which she tries so hard to cloak. Daniel Craig surprised me. He’s not really done much work of this level where he doesn’t star as the steely hero. Here, he felt so immaculately human throughout. Some of his line deliveries were sensationally good. I was pessimistic about this casting, particularly because its so distant from how I had imagined the character, but I actually really enjoyed it.

I also applaud Fincher’s decision not to cut down the ending of the film. It’s tempting, particularly with a big Hollywood picture, to cut out the narrative resolutions. This story is always about Lisbeth. It’s tempting to consider Mikael an equal protagonist, but there’s no denying the cinematographical and dialogic focus on Lisbeth throughout. That’s why it’s so important to carry on beyond the demise of the killer: this is about her character, how she changes, how she grows. It was inversely reminiscent of Julia, a 2008 film starring Tilda Swinton, where the narrative is so centric on a character and that character’s journey that the physical acts become subsidiary.

I’m also pleased that they didn’t dull down the sharpness of her character and some of the acts. The intense sexuality and sense of violation is integral to understanding her character, and I’m glad they didn’t decide to back out at the last second with the clichéd ominous fade to black or sound of screaming against a cityscape. We bear witness to these horrendous violations, both perpetrated by Lisbeth and acted out against her. There was a sense of her character being disturbed and tormented in some way, even if it is by her being victim to her own damaged psyche.

The only thing I found slightly off-putting was a seeming lack of linguistic security in which languages would actually be used in the film. It’s a sharp pull out of the diegesis when a film so centric on evidence found in newspapers, slides, documents, old notes etc. seems to feature in a number of languages, sometimes the native language of the country in which it’s set and some in English for the benefit of the audience. It made it difficult to assess my positioning in the narrative: am I going to be told every detail in the climactic scenes, meaning I need not pay attention to the earlier evidence in order to figure it out myself? Or am I supposed to read each clue, consider the evidence in my head, weigh up alternatives and come to my own conclusions? Although I found it did jar some of the progression in the detective narrative, it’s a petty point to make and I almost feel overly pedantic pointing it out because the film was so spectacular and it didn’t make an enormous amount of difference.

It’s definitely a must-watch, particularly because we’re certain to be expecting the two sequels to be adapted to the screen in the coming years. Daniel Craig is shooting Bond at the moment so it’ll probably be more than a year before The Girl Who Played With Fire hits the big screen, but I’m already excited at the prospect of more. David Fincher is yet to be attached to the series though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides against it as he’s never been part of a big film series before and the film has only been a modest success at the Box Office. But fingers crossed, none the less! Let’s just hope that wherever this series goes, with whichever director sits at the helm, the character of Lisbeth is done as much justice as she was here.