Girl Movie

On Christmas Eve, I went to see the new U.S. version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I had not seen the original Swedish film nor read the original book. One or both of those had long been on my to-do list, but just never bubbled to the top. So it happened that because of my interest in seeing director David Fincher's newest effort, this is the "Tattoo" experience that got there first.

This is a long movie, clocking in at two hours and forty minutes -- and feeling every minute of that length. That's not to say it's a boring movie, but the pacing of the story isn't sufficiently taut to fly by.

The opening unspools slowly, taking the audience through a longer-than-usual-for-a-mainstream-movie series of character introduction beats for the two main characters, investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist and troubled hacker Lisbeth Salander. You get a crystal clear picture of who both people are, and yet the two don't truly intersect with one another for what feels like too long a chunk of the movie.

Once they do, the film careens down an intriguing and suspenseful path as the two investigate a decades-old murder at the behest of a wealthy benefactor. The search is a satisfying mix of high and low tech, both characters are given strong material, and the revelations are exciting. The movie is firing on all cylinders at this point.

But then the mystery wraps up. And the movie soldiers on through what feels like two epilogues. See, the journalist's back story, as set up in the opening of the film, really demands a payoff for the tale to be complete. And yet, none of it feels as compelling as the mystery that's just come to a close. It's hard to argue with it being part of the film; it's just not as entertaining. (And does it really have to take another 30 minutes?)

Still, overall, the film does deliver what I was looking for. Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara are both fantastic as the main characters. Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, and Joely Richardson are highlights in the supporting cast. The movie does indeed make you sit up on the edge of your seat at times, and recoil to the back of it in other uncomfortable moments. David Fincher's careful style plays in every second, and another fantastic score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross heightens it all.

I'd say it all works out to around a B. Some judicious editing in the opening and closing 30 minutes might have yielded a better film in my eyes, but what's there is still pretty good.