March 15, 2010
There are some films where everyone leaves the cinema smiling, greeting strangers as long-lost friends, in posession of a new-found hope for humanity. This is not one of them. Here the subject matter is grim, and the theme of injustice towards humanity pervades, and any wrongs set right are probably outweighed by the harm already done. All of which is just as it should be, and if you can survive the novel you'll enjoy the film.
I assumed, when I first heard there would be a film of the Millennium Trilogy, that it had been bought up by Hollywood. I pictured a castlist with Mel Gibson as Blomqvist, Keira Knightly or Reese Witherspoon as Lisbeth Salander, the whole transposed to New Hampshire, or perhaps Alaska if they really wanted some wilderness. In short I expected a travesty.
That this film is in Swedish with subtitles is superb. I could hear appreciative comments about this from other audience members, and it is very interesting to recognise a percentage of the words (murder and daughter feature quite heavily) while letting the language wash over you. It's also excellent that the actors are people I don't recognise, and the adaptation is intelligent. The whole thing feels like it's done by people who enjoyed the novel and didn't want to butcher it. It's very refreshing.
I suspect that the people who go to see this will already know the story, and that if you didn't then it would probably move at a rather breakneck pace. It certainly works if you do know it already - and the details which have been changed don't jar, but fit well and develop the characters. It's always going to be necessary to leave something out, to squeeze this sizeable novel into a reasonable length film. I felt the lack of a couple of bits, but nothing major. The original is so journalistic that you don't miss the prose.
The [18] cert is necessary, and some of the characters are really quite dark, but I would definitely recommend this film. It's out of the ordinary, the lead characters and their interaction is excellent and at times touching, and you don't get all the way through the thought that it's really got a bit incredible, before you're whisked off by the next twist in the plot.
I assumed, when I first heard there would be a film of the Millennium Trilogy, that it had been bought up by Hollywood. I pictured a castlist with Mel Gibson as Blomqvist, Keira Knightly or Reese Witherspoon as Lisbeth Salander, the whole transposed to New Hampshire, or perhaps Alaska if they really wanted some wilderness. In short I expected a travesty.
That this film is in Swedish with subtitles is superb. I could hear appreciative comments about this from other audience members, and it is very interesting to recognise a percentage of the words (murder and daughter feature quite heavily) while letting the language wash over you. It's also excellent that the actors are people I don't recognise, and the adaptation is intelligent. The whole thing feels like it's done by people who enjoyed the novel and didn't want to butcher it. It's very refreshing.
I suspect that the people who go to see this will already know the story, and that if you didn't then it would probably move at a rather breakneck pace. It certainly works if you do know it already - and the details which have been changed don't jar, but fit well and develop the characters. It's always going to be necessary to leave something out, to squeeze this sizeable novel into a reasonable length film. I felt the lack of a couple of bits, but nothing major. The original is so journalistic that you don't miss the prose.
The [18] cert is necessary, and some of the characters are really quite dark, but I would definitely recommend this film. It's out of the ordinary, the lead characters and their interaction is excellent and at times touching, and you don't get all the way through the thought that it's really got a bit incredible, before you're whisked off by the next twist in the plot.