The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I have a confession to make; The pressure of Mystery Monday finally got to me!

It’s not that the world isn’t full of mysteries. It is! It’s just that I’d wait until the minute to choose a topic and inevitably stress myself out hunting for a subject, link, etc.

So I decided to make a change with the new year. I’ll still do Mystery Monday from time to time when I have one, but when I don’t, we’ll talk about movies, because as you all know, I ADORE movies. Between DVDs and streaming, I watch at least two a week, which should give us plenty to talk about.

Let’s start with David Lynch’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I say “David Lynch’s” because a Swedish version was made first, and I have to say, I LOVED it. It was dark and brutal and the scenery was gorgeous. Plus, it’s interesting how the actors they chose (all of whom did an amazing job) didn’t have the slick, homogeneous beauty of American actors. I liked that about it!

David Lynch’s version was different – slicker, a little more subtle, and definitely Americanized – but I still enjoyed it. If you haven’t read the books I should tell you that it’s not for the faint of heart. This is a graphic mystery/thriller about men who hate women (so much so that that was the original title of the first book in Larssen’s Millennium Trilogy), a damaged, badass woman who takes matters into her own hands, and a man who loves women and fights to see that they get justice.

The casting was dead on with Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Slander and Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist and while the score (done by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails) was, in my opinion, too generic for such an intense story, the overall film held it’s own with the Swedish version.

On another note, if you haven’t read the book and like this kind of thing, you should. It’s an incredible trilogy.

Here’s the trailer;