Lisbeth Salander a computer hacker and disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist form an unlikely partnership in an investigation into the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, 40 years earlier.
We are given a good background to both characters, seeing Mikael with his family and the people he works with at Millenium magazine and when he gets the offer from Vagner. We see how much of a struggle Lisbeth’s life seems to be, and glimpses of her violent lifestyle. That she did not have very good relationships with the men in her life, this being topped by the awful rape from a man in a postion of power over her and in control of everything.
I was very impressed with how true to the book the film stayed, with a lot of it being how I had imagined it whilst reading. Noomi Rapace was exactly how I imagined Lisbeth, capturing her withdrawn nature but then how she gets close to Mikael. Michael Nyqvist as Blomkvist also captured the character so well, bringing him to life from the page to the screen.
The pace of the film was very good and we got a very good amount of background information to aid the understanding of the story. Something I found important with the regards to an adaptation from the book, as we are given a lot of information to think about and remember from start to finish. This was handled with in a very good way in the film.
I haven’t really got into watching foreign films before as always thought reading the subtitles would be too much of a difficult task. But how wrong I was about that, the performances in this film are incredible. Plus a lot of Swedish words are similar to the English equivalent so it turns out you don’t actually have to read very much during the course of the film. I guess the old cliché of actions speak louder than words comes into it when brilliant performances are put in.
I really did find this a brilliant adaptation of the book from page to screen and at times it really was exactly how I imagined it whilst reading the book. Rapace was the perfect Salander in my eyes!
