Jen and I went to see Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the other night (after a spectacular meal at Baroncini, currently our favorite restaurant in Iowa City), and really enjoyed it. The two of us had each read and loved the book by Stieg Larsson, so although I have liked Fincher’s work before (esp. Fight Club), our expectations were moderate. I expected something like the experience of watching Atonement, a perfectly fine film, but nowhere near touching the level of Ian McEwan’s novel. I did have a couple of thoughts, so I thought I’d get them down in print. The following includes spoilers, so… ALERT.

First of all, I thought the idea of having a music video intro, the likes of which I can only compare to the beginning of a James Bond film, was very cool. I’ve only read the first book, but Jen has read them all, and tells me that it almost serves as an abstract telling of Lisbeth’s back story–her origin story, in comic book terms. In any case, it sets a tone as much as anything. Not consistent with the novel in any way–I don’t think you get a sense of the dark grit of the book until much later–but I thought it was a good example of what you can do with film that would be hard to do in print.

There are obvious inconsistencies with the book, such as tearing out subplots that involved many of Vanger’s relatives on the island (which, as Jen pointed out, made it much more obvious that Martin was the killer, since we don’t spend much time getting to know any other character). This seemed necessary, even if it led to whiny, snarky reviews like this one. The sharpest jolt is the final twist (did I say spoiler alert?) in which that-woman-working-at-the-bank-whose-name-I-forget is revealed to be Harriet. This, if anything, seemed an improvement on the book. Another ten minute segment where we went to Australia would have done more harm than good for the moviegoer who hadn’t read the novel.

The one departure, I think, was the decision to change so much about the scene where Martin has Blomkvist chained in the basement. In the book, Larsson makes Blomkvist much more vulnerable, by having Martin strip him naked. He actually puts Blomkvist in the position of the women who have been victims throughout the book, including Lisbeth. In the book, Martin is about to kiss Blomkvist when Lisbeth intercedes.

This is not a small point. Though Fincher (and Stephen Zaillian, the film’s screenwriter) do stay generally true to the book, they pull back on what was, to me, an important component of what Larsson seemed most intent on doing: making a good, innocent man vulnerable in a way that is rare for men, but routine for women. It’s worth remembering that Larsson’s original title for the book was Men Who Hate Women. He began each section with a statistic about women being sexually assaulted or harassed. This was a big deal to him. So to make the climactic moment PG-13, having previously shown no restraint during the vilest assault on Lisbeth, makes me wonder if Larsson would have seen this and determined that Fincher and Zaillian missed the point of the entire book.

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