Intense, visceral and well drawn the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo nails the feel and tone of the book.

Based on the novel by the late Stieg Larsson, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tells the complicated tale of disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who is hired to investigate a decades old murder in the hopes to take revenge on the corporation that destroyed him. When Blomkvist hires hacker and part time private investigator Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) as a research assistant he starts making unexpected progress on what was thought to be an unsolvable case. This leads to a tangled web of family politics, intrigue, murder, subterfuge and rape. A whole lot of rape.

It is impossible to review this film without acknowledging the previous Swedish adaptation of the book but, while I have read the book I have not seen that film and will not compare the two. I will also not argue whether or not this new version should or should not exist given the existence of the other one because this one is here now and debate on whether or not it should be is pretty much pointless. Also it is excellent.

Now, David Fincher is one of my favorite directors and this material is right up his alley. It is dark, bleak and violent punctuated with long moments of quiet. The camera moves are inspired and, rather than showing off to be flashy or artsy, serve the pacing of the story which itself is not consistent but rather has a bit of an ebb and flow. The choices of scene order and how those scenes play out are impeccable and Fincher’s alternation between the quiet and peaceful and explosive and violent mirrors that of the book without feeling slavish. This alternation makes the scenes in question really pop and giving us the quiet peaceful moments cut with the horrifying violent ones makes that violence feel a bit more disturbing. This is really something because the scenes of rape, torture and violence are plenty disturbing on their own.

These scenes are going to make this a really polarizing movie for a lot of people. They are not exploitative and not generally glorified, with perhaps one notable exception, but they are intense and very graphic. If you are the sort of person who cannot tolerate that sort of material then this movie is absolutely not for you and if you go anyway knowing that then any offense you take away is on you. This is very adult material and it is presented in an unflinching way. If that is a problem for you personally then avoid this picture.

The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is pretty much perfect for the material. It punctuates the action and emotion of the piece without overpowering it and overshadowing it. The score here help builds the mood without ever being overbearing or distracting.

From a story perspective, the mystery itself is fairly standard if not a bit convoluted. There are a lot of players involved here and if you don’t pay attention to what is going on it is easy to lose track of the threads. The conclusion of the mystery is probably not going be all that exciting but the elements are put together well and the story told is engaging. Aside from the mystery, there are a lot of other irons in the fire as well which adds additional flavor that keeps this from being a by the numbers who done it.

The characters and how they comport themselves really take center stage and elevate the story to something more than passably interesting. Stephen King says that the key to good story telling is to put interesting characters in interesting situations and they will do interesting things without relying on tired conventions of plot. There is plenty of plot here but what makes the movie shine are the characters that maneuver around it. The standout is Salander who is a layered character that is filled with personal conflict and contradictions but who, despite whatever personal and emotional shortcomings she might display, is a force to be reckoned with and who is very good at what she does. The best aspect of her is her vulnerability coupled with her skill and abject badassery. It is great to have a badass character who cannot be touched but even better to have one who can be touched but then touch back hard. She works so well because she is, despite those aspects of her designed to keep others out, a human being.

The other characters are still interesting despite Salander shining the brightest. Blomkvist could be a boring straight man but he proves to be just as strong a character and just as vulnerable. He is competent without being omnipotent and smart without being flawless. The two characters compliment each other very well and you never feel like one is carrying the other. The other characters involved, the Vanger clan, are interesting and multi-layered as well and make for a great suspect pool.

The performances were great here and I was very impressed with how well each actor embodied the character. Mara is without flaw as Salander. She embodies the character in every way from posture to attitude to small subtle behavioral details. As mentioned above, the character works because of the mixture of toughness and vulnerability and you get that in spades with Mara’s performance. I don’t know how Salander was portrayed in the previous film but for my money Mara is the definitive Salander. Craig gives us a proud but somewhat defeated Blomkvist who is determined to survive despite his setbacks and he is very believable and relatable.  The rest of the roles are filled out very nicely and the performances shine across the board without any sour notes.

As an adaptation, the film does a very good job at hitting the important notes. At two and a half hours, the film covers a lot of ground but there was a lot more to cover. The omissions and changes made to the film serve the pacing and timing of the film and, with the exception of the several codas at the end of the film, the pacing is fit and clips along well. Sticklers for exact details might be annoyed by these omissions and the one major change in story at the end, but as a whole they serve the story the film is telling. This story is inline with that of the book in all the important ways.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

Your mileage may vary with this movie and with this score. If you are not okay with the violence and the graphic scenes of rape and torture then you are not going to like this at all. Period. If you are married to the original film and feel like that was the perfect representation of the story then you will probably be irritated with the differences here. Likewise, if you don’t want any aspects of the original changed or omitted then you are going to be disappointed. If, however, you are cool with these aspects and take it as its own film then there is a lot to love here and it is one of the best films of the year.