In my campaign review for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (written five years ago, I know) I wrote:
The campaign does, though, make it clear what audiences can expect should they make the decision to head to the theater for this movie: A highly stylized murder mystery with strong messages about class and sexual politics. That won’t be surprising to anyone familiar with the book or the original movie, of course, but I suspect the same can’t be said of the general public who, like me, has resisted the siren calls of both previous incarnations of the story.
Yep, that about sums up my experience with the movie itself. Fincher’s style is all over this movie, but it’s the slick Fincher of the last 10 years, not the gritty Fincher of earlier in his career. You’ll recognize the look and feel here from movies like The Social Network, Gone Girl and others.
If theres anything that I can find where the marketing – the trailer in particular – mis-sold the movie it’s that the trailer is very frantic, whereas the movie itself is much more slowly paced, almost languidly so. The campaign was selling a fast-paced, thrill-a-minute murder mystery but the movie itself unfolds much more deliberately. There are moments of heightened tension, to be sure, but overall things are laid out slowly and carefully, at the same pace you’d be walking through the winter snows that make up so much of the landscapes in the film.
I still haven’t read the source book nor have I seen the original movie. So I can’t speak to how faithful this version is or isn’t to either of those. But yes, the story has a ton to say about class and sexual politics, just as I expected. It’s *much* more graphic than I was anticipating, though I’m not sure why I’m surprised by that.
