The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo film review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a fantastic film. Between the storyline, acting and editing, the film is one to remember. The film is an example of what a great drama and suspense film looks like. The roles played by Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig are so perfect for the film and prove that anything is possible between a 51 year old man, and a 34 year old woman. When I first watched this film, I was 11 years old and had no idea what I was in for when watching the film. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has me from a young age to know what a good drama and suspense film looks like, how the roles of the two main characters in the film can be so perfect and how this film ruined my childhood.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a Film written by Steven Zaillian and Stieg Larrson and directed by David Fincher. The two main characters in this film are Mikael Blomkvist, who is played by Daniel Craig and Lisbeth Salander who is played by Rooney Mara. It takes place somewhere in the United Kingdom or Europe. Mikael is a reporter of some sort and also turns out to be great at solving crimes and finding the “dirty” things people have done that nobody knows about. Rooney is a gothic woman who we later find out to like both men and women. One Christmas Mikael gets an important call from the receptionist of a very rich businessman. Mikael answers this call and gets requested to go out of town to meet with this rich businessman for an urgent talk. He goes and gets offered to take off from his job to solve a 40 year old mystery. Mikael would get to live in a nice cottage on the island in which the mystery is on and to make 2 times his salary per month if he does not solve it or 4 times his salary if he does solve it. There was a lot on Mikael’s mind because he does have a wife and kids, however it was an opportunity he could not turn down. He moves into the cottage then realizes there is not great cell service on the island. He gets to work. He questions all of the family members available and all the questions needed to help with the mystery. Unfortunately, there was not enough available evidence as the months went by. In today’s world the number one way of obtaining a lot of accurate information in a short period of time is illegal but may be worth it to some people. These people are Hackers. Mikael knocks on a woman’s door early in the morning; she goes by the name of Lisbeth. In the specific scene where we meet Lisbeth for the first time, she is sleeping in bed with a Woman she was making love too in the club the night before. Lisbeth kicked her out after inviting Mikael in to talk about the mystery. Lisbeth offered to be of help to Mikael in his mystery with her incredible Hacking skills; we see her buy a device from a sketchy man in an apartment to plant it underneath a building to receive what information is going in and out through the internet access in the building. Mikael brings Lisbeth to the cottage and explains all of his findings on the way to the site. Lisbeth started to gain knowledge for the information Mikael had and things slowly started to pick up when Lisbeth was introduced to the mystery and was onboard. Earlier in the film when we meet Lisbeth she is forced to perform oral sex on the man who controls her bank accounts and writes reports on her for the court system. Shortly after this situation, Lisbeth needed more money for “groceries”. This time the man invites her to his apartment and actually rapes her. Fortunately for her, she had a secret camera in her bag she laid down in the room so she had gotten the entire thing on tape. It was absolutely brutal and maybe is one of the few reasons Lisbeth is the way she is. Going back to after she is put on the case, Lisbeth went back to the man’s apartment however this time she was prepared. When the man came to the door, she was talking to him casually and then tased him with a lot of volts when given the opportunity. She dragged him to his room and tied him to the bed as he did to her. She gets her payback by tattooing “I AM A RAPIST” on his chest; that was permanent. She also blackmails him with the video taken from her bag and tells him to give her the money she wants when she wants it and to write amazing things about her in the letters to the court system. She gets her money and gets back on the case with Mikael right away. After the first couple of nights they end up having sex with eachother which was initiated by Lisbeth; Mikael cheats on his wife and we find out that Lisbeth is not Lesbian but Bi-Sexual. After this point in the film things start to escalate quickly. We find a dead cat on the front door step of the cottage. The cat was a symbol of tranquility, once the cat died, it all started to come together. Mikael was told by the rich businessman at the beginning of the mystery that they were allowed to have whatever they needed and whenever they needed it. So, the only way they could get information was going to their warehouse where they kept all of the files necessary to help solve the mystery. As Lisbeth is in the Warehouse, she connects all of the dots and solves the mystery. When this is happening, Mikael is visiting one of the people who they met earlier in the book because he actually is the person who committed the crime. Mikael sneaks into the man’s house, and gets caught by the man red handed when jumping out of his house. The man in which Mikael was investigating, invites Mikael in for a drink. Mikeal thinks about it and accepts reluctantly. They talk and as they are talking, the man notices one of the knives missing out of his knife box on his kitchen counter. At this moment, the man conveniently has a gun in which he pulls out and points it at Mikael, and guides him with a threat of a bullet in his brain to his basement which has heavy security in it. Once Mikael gets in the basement, the man puts a gas mask on quickly and activates a gas attack on Mikael which knocks him out. He wakes up strapped in a type of torturing device in which the man uses to ask him questions and attempts to kill him. Lisbeth sneaks up behind the Man and knocks him out with a golf club. Lisbeth gets to release Mikael while the Man slowly gets up and gets away. Mikael allows Lisbeth to track him down and kill him. They get into a car chase and ultimately the man loses control of his car, crashes and dies from the car’s explosion. When they get back to the cottage, they realize the daughter who disappeared was actually not dead and went away to get away from her rapist father and brother. After this, the hacker impersonates someone else and empties out all of the rich businessman’s bank accounts illegally. The daughter finally decides to come back to her hometown to see her father after 40 years of not seeing him. That is the basic story timeline of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

This fantastic Drama and Suspense Film is one that fits its categories very well. The movie creates such suspense because of the slow pace and the length of the film. The film is over two and a half hours long, which is pretty long for a film of this nature, however it worked. The time worked well to create suspense while simultaneously creating drama in the process. In the beginning of the film, we meet both of the characters at the same time however we as the audience did not see them meet each other yet. Seeing both of these characters built up suspicion in the viewers head of when were they going to meet? Finally, Mikael shows up to Lisbeth’s apartment and they meet. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of drama is “verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance”. This film is 100 percent a drama. As for the plot, the roles of the main characters fit perfectly.

You have a man and a woman as the main roles so it promotes cultural diversity. Daniel Craig is a great fit for Mikael. He naturally has an accent from Europe or the United Kingdom and has had fantastic acting opportunities such as James Bond and others. The role of Daniel Craig is much different from James Bond to Mikael due to the action factor. However the smart part of Daniel Craig is in Mikael to solve the mystery. As for Lisbeth, Rooney Mara has a very important role in the film due to the fact that she is a woman, but is also “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. If it was not for Lisbeth, Mikael would have most likely not solved the mystery. This film is very realistic and could totally happen in today’s society. This film is not didactic but does have the opportunity to teach the audience real life lessons about hacking and how nasty and sick people can be today. I think the decisions David Fincher made as the director were very good and helped the film immensely. The editing in this film made everything better, between the coloring, shading, fast cuts, transitions and overall timing between scenes. The rhythm and tone of how each character talks is very important to the mood of the film and what emotions they are trying to provoke the audience of. There are no politics involved in the shooting or any parts of this film due this film was based and made off of a book. As for religious beliefs, the Bible was referenced a lot in the film. It has a lot of significance when trying to solve the mystery since the murders were linked to certain places in the bible and the way the people were murdered.