Well, a couple of things. First, this is a really great movie. I really enjoyed it. Second, this is a very uncomfortable movie to watch. As they would say in "Clockwork Orange" a lot of ultra violence and even more of the old in out.
I don't know any director alive who could do a better job with this movie than David Fincher. The same director that did Fight Club and Se7en brought the same grittyness and darkness to an already very violent movie.
Daniel Craig plays a journalist in persuit of a wealthy executive in Sweden. He is quickly disgraced and with his paper on the verge of ruin, he accepts a job investigating the disappearance of a wealthy man's daughter. He quickly learns that the family has more skeletons than a cemetary. Between the nazis, pedophiles, and backstabbers, it's no wonder most of the family doesn't talk to one another.
It's not must longer before Lizbeth (Roony Mara) enters the picture. Our titular character is just brilliant. I believe my old Feminist Studies professor would call her "a fully actualized feminist". While her back history is beyond depressing, she grew up to be a brilliant, strong, and independant woman. A person who lives her life exactly the way she wants. Others might call her a sociopath since she has no qualms about sex, thieft, and acts of ultra violence.
Needless to say, I'm in love with this girl.
The movie itself has more than a few images of rape. If you aren't comfortable watching very graphic images of rape, than it's going to spoil the movie for you. Lizbeth gets raped. Anally. It's very hard to watch. But the good news is that she does manage to get revenge against the guy very quickly and brutally. The movie doesn't labor too much on the ugliness of what happened. Instead it's used to show character. It demonstrates what kind of person Lizbeth is and how vengeful she truely could be.
It's an investigation movie so I can't really go too much into what happened but I will say I do understand why fans of the book might be disappointed. The most interesting part of the movie is the family, but little detail is given. The disfunction of this family is fascinating. I wanted to know more of just how this rich family can get so messed up. I'm sure the book goes into more detail when Mikael (Daniel Craig) is investigating.
So, would I recommend this movie? That's a hard question. I really liked it. But this really isn't a movie for the causal audience. Some parts are very uncomfortable to watch. I could've done without how much it labored on the rape scene and how graphically it was portrayed. The sadism is also hard to look at. If you have a problem with horrific images, I wouldn't recommend you go and see this movie. If you can convince yourself that it's just a movie and you can roll with the more disturbing parts, it's a very enjoyable movie.
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