12 December 2010

Brava! Brava!: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo


So often, movies make a mockery of a good book. They try to cram too much into two hours, attempting to hit every plot point that the book presented, failing to make the movie very deep or interesting.

Last night I finally got around to watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I loved this book, so was pretty excited to watch the movie. Seeing as it's in Swedish, I had to be in the right frame of mind to sit and watch and read the subtitles. The book was a quick moving, plot-tastic piece of literature. It was really fun to read, but there was a lot packed into those 300 or so pages!

I must say...the movie hit all the right points. It didn't get everything in the book, but it didn't need to. As the movie unfolded, I was excited to see what they chose to follow, and what they chose to ignore. They chose to ignore some storylines that were pretty big in the book, but not pivotal to the main plot. I think there were a few things that made a little more sense since I read the book, but you definitely didn't need the background to get it.

I am not going to give away any big points, that wouldn't do the movie any justice or be fair, but it was pretty awesome. The look of the main character was pretty close to what was presented in the book...something that would be awfully hard to do, and something I think the American movie casting already got wrong (I just can't imagine the woman cast looking at all boyish, but I guess we'll see).

I am super interested in seeing the American movie now, because I wonder if it will choose to stay faithful to the book or the Swedish movie. If it's the book...we may be in trouble, as American movies tend to try to cram everything in (especially any sex), and that really isn't so much the point of this movie.

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