My Kind of Heroine: "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" requires some endurance to watch, not only because it's two and half hours in length, but it because it contains stomach-churning graphic violence, much of it sexual, and much of it aimed at women. Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" books about the hacker vigilante, Lisbeth Salander, have gained enormous popularity worldwide, and the trades are buzzing with casting speculation for an American adaptation, most likely a remake of last year's Swedish film version. However, I worry that an American take on the material would remove or undercut many of the darker, less palatable elements of the original. And as troubling as those elements may be, that would be a shame.

Noomi Rapace plays Salander, a bisexual twenty-four-year old with a photographic memory and a troubled past. She works as a researcher for a security company, sussing out the details of people's lives by breaking into their computers and bank accounts. One of her assignments is a background check on Mikael "Kalle" Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a reporter framed on a libel charge. A powerful corporate figure, Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), wishes to hire him during the short interval before Blomkvist's impending prison term to investigate the forty-year-old disappearance of his niece. Salander, who takes an interest in Blomkvist, gradually involves herself in the job, eventually teaming up with him to uncover the truth. But first, she has to deal with her scumbag parole "guardian" Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson), who withholds access to her bank accounts and demands sexual favors.

Rapace's excellent performance is the key to the film. She's visually androgynous, decked out like a rocker punk with multiple piercings, a scattering of spikes and chains, and the famous dragon tattoo that wraps around her ripcord frame. She's been billed as an action star, but her bursts of violence are rare and brief. It's her attitude that defines her. She's rude, perhaps socially maladjusted, but not confrontational. She doesn't retaliate unless pushed, will shrug off the little things up to a point, and prefers to stay out of trouble. The character's best moments come when she's simply observing, deliberating. But when trouble does come her way, she's ferocious and unmerciful. A few glimpses of her childhood and history of personal troubles suggest that Lisbeth Salander is a product of a mean and lonely universe, and her repertoire of skills is a necessity for her to survive it.

Young women, including Salander, are constantly victimized in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," always at the hands of much older men ensconced in positions of power. There are a proliferation of mature gentlemen in the cast of characters, and the mystery really comes down to figuring out which of them is the violent sexual sadist and murderer. You get the sense that Salander deals with this on a daily basis, which gives her an advantage when untangling the riddle for someone else. To the director's credit there's no cutting away from the sexual violence, which is treated as distasteful and aberrant. However, the story is told from a distinctly male sensibility, which solves violence with more violence, and has no reservations about pairing up Salander with the fairly milquetoast, middle-aged Blomkvist romantically. Younger men don't seem to exist in this world, except for a few troublesome street hooligans who are easily dispatched.

I have very mixed feelings about the film. I enjoy Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, the mystery elements are well executed, and the action is satisfying. Everybody gets their due in the end, the mystery is solved, and it's all very neat and tidy, yet leaves plenty of narrative space for the two sequels that follow it. But when you get right down to it, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" treads the same ground as a film like "Taken," which used serious social ills as fodder for a visceral action spectacular without bothering to deal with the surrounding issues in any sort of meaningful way. "Tattoo" is a better film, less cartoonish and less exploitative, but it doesn't escape many of the same problems. I'm well aware that it's an action film and not a social drama, but with this kind of material "Tattoo" feels a little less for not saying more.

I'm curious about the remake, because I want to see what David Fincher, the man who gave us "Fight Club" and "Zodiac," is going to do with it. A major benefit will be that Fincher will be doing a straight film adaptation. The overlong running time of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is largely due to the film actually having originated as a television miniseries, and there are many places where it shows. The biggest hurdle to clear will be the casting of Lisbeth Salander. Daniel Craig has already been confirmed for the Blomkvist role and Stellan Skarsgard will play Henrik Vanger, but Salander is the vital one. Noomi Rapace is not an easy act to follow, and she's the reason I'll be tracking down the other two films in the "Milennium" series, "The Girl Who Played With Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," when they become available, even everything points to them being essentially retreads of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."