More rings the better in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: DVD Release of the Week

18 Oct 2010 Leave a comment

by Laura Stackhouse in DVD Releases Tags: , , , ,

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (film)

Image via Wikipedia

It should come as no big surprise that Hollywood are currently remaking another Swedish movie (they must be doing something right!), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Adapted from the book (wow this is just getting plain boring, seriously the film world needs to come up with some new ideas) by Stieg Larsson, the original film version was a success, especially as far as foreign language flicks go.

I’m one of those people who feel the need to read the book before seeing the film. I don’t know whether in fact that’s necessary as rarely do films follow their source material very closely. It was a long book (500 pages) and to be honest, I wasn’t really getting it until 200/250 pages in. It took me months to read because the first half was so slow for me. I just couldn’t understand where it was going. Nothing seemed to be coming together, all the characters seemed so far apart and then BAM! 250 pages in it got real good and I finish the last half in a tenth of the time it took me to read the first.

Anyway, I knew I was probably going to like the movie, because they’d cut out all the stuff I found a bit boring in the novel. The financial journalism and the pages of (I felt) slightly unnecessary overtly descriptive text about the shape of a kettle, or the exact contents of Lisbeth Salander‘s sandwich.

I was right, almost. The film was pretty darn good. Because it cut out a lot of the storyline it had to simplify the plot, cutting out huge sections so that it fit neatly, but at least they kept to the general original premise, and most of the major scenes were included, including a brutal rape scene (although they did tame it just slightly). There were a couple of scenes added in, one especially about Lisbeth’s past, which doesn’t get mentioned in  the first novel, but likely does in the sequels (I haven’t read them, and I’m not sure I will).

The two leads, Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist, and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, were amazing. The acting was fantastic and completely believable. Also, throughout the movie I looked at their faces and realised. These are real people, real actors. Not like the over-processed, plastic surgery inflicted actors of Hollywood, which is part of the reason they look so believable. I like that. I like that a lot.

Only slight complaint would be that at times the soundtrack would go from barely there, to loud and overbearing, which was a slight distraction. Also the editing at the end was a little mushed together, probably due to their being so much original content to try to fit in. Without reading the book I would guess that the ending is a little confusing for viewers.

Overall though a definite thumbs up from me. But for anyone who is subtitle-phobic: this is a Swedish movie, and I wouldn’t recommend the dubbed version to anyone. So if you blanch at the site of lines of writing at the bottom of the screen, I would reluctantly suggest you wait for the Hollywood version. You never know, it may be as good… It is being directed by David Fincher after all… Interesting that Rooney Mara (the young woman who plays Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend at the start of The Social Network – another Fincher movie) is playing Lisbeth. I wonder if she can pull off the feminist bisexual with mental problems look? Hmmmm

Out to rent on DVD now.

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Will you be my friend? The Social Network review

15 Oct 2010 Leave a comment

by Laura Stackhouse in Hot Reviews, Must Watch Tags: , , , ,

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Image by sitmonkeysupreme via Flickr

Today I went to see The Social Network, one of this week’s new releases. If you haven’t heard anything about this movie or seen the trailer at least, say, ten times, I’d be likely to believe you been sent off the earth in a rocket, with earplugs tightly squished in, and a blindfold across the eyes. Undoubtedly it is one of the biggest movies of 2010, one that certainly will be the talking point of a lot of awkward ‘I don’t know what to talk about so I’ll try movies’ conversation parties. After seeing it I am skeptical of exactly how close to the truth it really is. I believe that Mark Zuckerberg was (or is) probably a sociopathic genius. I believe he probably screwed over his contemporaries to get what he wanted. But I don’t believe much else. Only Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin are the ones who can attest to a lot of it. Plus the story leaves a lot unresolved; Who really betrayed who? Who was really jealous of who? And so on.

The first thing I was struck by, actually in the first scene, was the speed of the dialogue. It was like watching the West Wing on fast forward with the sound on loud (which isn’t that much of a surprise seeing as these were both written by Aaron Sorkin), and also I hear David Fincher was under contract to make the film around 2 hours long and therefore has confessed he made the actors run through pages of dialogue as quickly as possibly). The pace is constantly speedy; which is good for me, I hate when a film drags unnecessarily. I think Jesse Eisenberg played the character of Mark Zuckerberg with excellence, Andrew Garfield showed why he is one of our rising stars (go Team GB) and even Justin Timberlake gave a performance that didn’t make me hum Sexyback quietly to myself.

Overall I left the cinema with a sense of wonder (at the genius of the concept of Facebook, its meteoric rise to success, and the film’s portrayal of its beginnings) but also at the empty and sort of cruel irony. If what the film portrays is in any part true then the founder of Facebook, the social network of 500 million people and countless friends, is (or maybe was is a better word to use) a lonely person. A lonely person who is now the youngest billionaire in the world yes, but a lonely person none-the-less. This is certainly what David Fincher seems to be trying to get across in the movie and it’s executed smartly and beautifully within that 2 hour 19 minute time slot.

Thumbs up from me!

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