“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

Movie Review

Based on the 2005 book by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, the 2011 neo-noir psychological thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was helmed by David Fincher, while Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay. It chronicles the tale of journalist Michael Blomkvist's inquiry to learn what happened to a girl from an affluent family who vanished 40 years ago, and features Daniel Craig as Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. He enlists the aid of computer hacker Salander.

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist is regaining his professional and legal footing in Stockholm after being sued for libel by billionaire Hans-Erik Wennerström. In exchange for an unusual task—looking into the 40-year-old disappearance and alleged murder of Henrik Vanger's grandniece, 16-year-old Harriet—the affluent Henrik Vanger provides Blomkvist information against Wennerström.

Vanger gets a framed pressed flower every year, the same kind she always gave him on his birthday before she vanished. He thinks her murderer is making fun of him. Blomkvist relocates to a cottage on the Hedestad Island property owned by the Vanger family.

The state-appointed guardian of young, bright, and antisocial hacker Lisbeth Salander has a stroke. Nils Bjurman, a sadist who manages Salander's finances and coerces sexual favors by threatening to institutionalize her, takes his place. Bjurman savagely rapes Salander while tying her to his bed while being unaware that she is filming him. The moment they cross paths again, Salander rapes Bjurman with a dildo, tases him, bonds him, and tattoos "I'm a rapist pig" across his chest. She blackmails him into securing her financial independence and cutting off contact with her using the covert tape she produced.

When Vanger is away, Blomkvist investigates the island and speaks with Vanger's relatives, discovering some of them supported the Nazis during World War II. He finds a list of names and numbers that are actually allusions to Bible verses, and he hires Salander to help him with his investigation. She finds a link between the list and countless brutally killed young women between 1947 and 1967, pointing to a serial killer. She surmises that since several of the victims have Jewish names, antisemitism may have been a factor in the killings. Blomkvist discovers his cat's dismembered body on the doorstep one morning. Another night, a bullet almost misses him in the forehead; Salander attends to his injuries before they have sex. They discover that Martin, Harriet's brother, and her late father Gottfried were responsible for the killings.

Blomkvist is apprehended by Martin while searching for more evidence and compelled into a basement that has been particularly set aside. Blomkvist is rendered unconscious and restrained there after being gassed. Like his father, Martin boasts of killing and raping women for years, although he acknowledges not knowing what happened to Harriet. Martin is going to be killed when Salander shows up, attacks him, and makes him run away. He is being pursued by her on her motorcycle when he veers off the road and crashes into a propane tank, which causes the automobile to explode and kills him. Blomkvist is restored to health by Salander, who also reveals that she attempted to burn her father alive as a youngster and was institutionalized as a result.

They conclude that Harriet is alive and hiding, so they set out for London in hopes of finding her. When Harriet was 14 years old, Gottfried began abusing her sexually for a whole year before she could protect herself and accidentally killed him. Once Gottfried passed away, Martin kept on abusing her. Although Anita and her husband were later fatally injured in a vehicle accident, Anita snuck Harriet off the island and allowed her to take on her identity there. Harriet leaves her brother behind and makes a sorrowful trip back to Sweden to see Henrik.

Henrik provides Blomkvist with information about Wennerström as promised, but it turns out to be old and useless. Salander reveals that she broke into Wennerström's accounts and found evidence of his money laundering for several organized crime groups. She provides Blomkvist with proof of Wennerström's crimes, which Blomkvist publishes in an editorial that is widely read and destroys Wennerström while establishing Blomkvist as a national figure. As Salander travels to Switzerland in disguise, she steals two billion euros from Wennerström's covert accounts. Later, Wennerström is killed in what appears to be a gangland shooting. Salander observes Blomkvist and his married lover, Erika Berger, making out when she is on her way to deliver Blomkvist a Christmas gift. She throws the gift aside and gets on her motorcycle to leave.

A critical and financial triumph, it earned overwhelmingly excellent reviews from critics who applauded the acting of Craig and Mara as well as Fincher's directing, music, tone, and cinematography of the movie. The movie was nominated for a number of prizes, including the Oscar Award for Best Film Editing, and the National Board of Review named it one of the top ten movies of 2011. Mara also received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in the movie.

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