The original title of the massive bestseller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was “Men Who Hate Women.” Its author, Stieg Larsson, intended to leave his fortune to the Communist Party when he died in 2004 (though a mistake in his will prevented that from happening). If you are unfamiliar with the story (which was, along with the rest of the trilogy, made into a successful series of Swedish films released in the U.S. last year), put your expectations for subtlety at the level marked “undergraduate.” This series of potboilers, like The Silence of the Lambs, involves a serial killer, sadism, women in peril, a secret cell where awful things happen to captured victims, and an unusual crime-solving partnership between a man and a woman. What it doesn’t offer is the slightest instance of plausibility, psychological depth, or even clever dialogue. And as directed by David Fincher, the Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t far from being rated X.
The young woman of the title, played by Rooney Mara (who is best known for having played the exasperated girlfriend of Mark Zuckerberg at the beginning of Fincher’s last movie, The Social Network), is a mohawked, multiple-pierced (even, as we learn, in her nipples) Swedish punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. At the start of the film, she is hired to investigate Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a crusading journalist who has just lost a major libel lawsuit against a corporate giant who, like all capitalists in the film, obviously came by his fortune dishonestly.
Salander has a history of antisocial behavior and petty crime, so she can only access a trust fund meant to support her if she can prove she is an upstanding citizen to a court-appointed guardian who naturally takes the opportunity to tell the girl she can’t have the money unless she provides oral sex to him. Whether it would be wise to ask a violent and hostile person to perform this task against her will is one of many legitimate questions the movie simply ignores in its quest to provide an ever more-revolting series of gruesome images. This scene is only the first of what will turn out to be three unbelievably sick and lurid encounters between the pair, but don’t worry: Lisbeth is capable of defending herself.
She and Blomkvist join forces (well into this 158-minute movie) to investigate the case of a girl who went missing in Sweden 40 years ago. Her great-uncle, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), wants Blomkvist to write a family history and maybe solve the crime while he’s at it. Vanger mentions that his family of wealthy industrialists is — just as you’d expect — full of Nazis. What else would you expect a communist writer to come up with if not the idea that making a fortune means you’re probably a National Socialist?
It turns out that that missing girl story is peripheral to the main horror, which is that the remote Swedish island that is home to the Vangers has also been headquarters for a long history of rape and serial killing reaching back across the decades, though no one noticed this was happening until Blomkvist came on the scene. It’s difficult to say which is more pronounced — the sense of feminist grievance (with rapists and girl-murderers skulking in every dark corner) or the outrage that some company might be making money somewhere. As the sadly recently deceased Christopher Hitchens put it in a 2009 essay, Larsson’s “best excuse for his own prurience is that these serial killers and torturers are practicing a form of capitalism and that their racket is protected by a pornographic alliance with a form of Fascism, its lower ranks made up of hideous bikers and meth runners. This is not just sex or crime–it’s politics!” As for all those disgusting rape scenes? “Moral righteousness comes in very useful for the action of the novels,” Hitchens wrote, “because it allows the depiction of a great deal of cruelty to women, smuggled through customs under the disguise of a strong disapproval.”
So take the critical hosannas for Larsson’s trilogy with a grain of salt. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could hardly be pulpier, nastier, more contrived, or more risible. Its characters — morally pure crusaders, evil fanatics — could not be less developed. The sex scenes between Blomkvist and Salander seem thrown in to give us one more chance to see Mara (who is in her twenties but has the body of a high-school sophomore) naked, not because Fincher makes us see any connection (emotional or physical) between the characters. The film is as depraved as Caligula, but at least Caligula didn’t pretend to be anything other than smut.
Almost rated “X” Awesome! Sounds like a great Christmas movie to me. I hope there are some quality kills!
Saw (rented, actually) the (Swedish) film trilogy based on these books.
Good lord, they sucked. And not in a good way; the guys at MST3K would have had a hard time riffing these, simply because the movies. are. boring. as. hell.
I tried to read the first book; I gave up about 1/3 of the way in. Pretentious, unbelievable crap.
Apache, your finding the Swedish series of the trilogy boring is very surprising. Just what does it take to keep you entertained??? Anyone that has not read the books would be completely lost as the books length required many things to be written out of the movie. We read the trilogy very quickly and found them very riveting. We found we didn’t even mind the subtitles in the Swedish movies as having the complete background of the books allowed us to follow easily. I would say if you haven’t read the trilogy you would not appreciate the movies. Sorry the author died as we would have loved more of his writings.
We are going to see the American version today and can’t wait to see the differences. Even before seeing the American version the ads show the difference in the appearance of the actors and actresses.
I mistakenly got “Girl” {sic} from Netflix, with no idea what I was in for. I found it met the Supreme Court definition of obscenity: pandering solely to prurient interests, with no redeeming social value. Indeed, the “social value” part is in fact a negative. Of course, someone who is a Communist, looking for a political diatribe depicting all Capitalists as Fascists, would probably disagree.
As a Libertarian, I am usually totally opposed to censorship. But I’d make an exception for any works by this author, in print or film. I feel the same way about the disgusting movie Seven, by the way. But if you haven’t seen Seven, don’t rush out and get it for any sexual interest. There is none, it’s strictly sadistic torture murders, with the only genuinely human character in the film destroyed by the end.
The only difference for me between these films, and a genuine snuff film, is that you know you are watching actors. No one actually dies in the making of them. Other than that, I find them equally morally and artistically repugnant.
Just got back from seeing the American version this afternoon, really liked it and thought it might be easier to follow for those that have not read the trilogy.
I can assure you we are very conservative people and did not see the films for their sexual violence. We are also totally against communism or any left leaning politics. The films show the influence of evil in the world today when many do not believe in the existence of evil. We are also in our 60′s and no not old hippies. We prefer to read and watch films that have involved plots and entwined characters. I am surprised that so many responses have been against the violence towards women in this film as most people do not cringe at the everyday violence on television, in films and everyday life. Believe me when I say I hate the violence shown but am old enough to know it is real and it will not go away just by pretending it will. Younger viewers may not have the patience to follow the movies since they are not as fast paced as their keyboards or video games.
I loved the movies, and look forward to seeing them again. Also the new American versions. I never rely on critics, as many of my favorite movies have been derided greatly. I am conservative, and love suspenseful movie that have a fair amount of action and twists and turns. Also strong female characters.
Joe Blow, I was going to comment on this review, but you said it the way I would have. Enjoyed the books and wish that Larsson could have finished all ten stories he had outlined before he died. Don’t know if it is true, but everything that happended in the trilogy supposedly happened in real life to someone on Sweden.
well said. The movies suck, the books (while not world class literature) make for a nice crime thriller to read on the train or waiting for a flight.
And that’s of course the case with pretty much every single movie made after a book, including things like the Lord of the Rings (where the movies butchered the basic story of the books to the point they flat out contradict the lore at key points).
What does it take to keep me entertained?
A competent author, for one.
And comparing the movies to Caligula is an insult to Caligula. Caligula had Helen Mirren, Gielgud, etc. Yes, Caligula was crap….but it was AWESOME crap.
The ‘Girl’ movies were just plain crap.
And you still watched THREE of the movies? Good lord, a movie has about 15 minutes to hook me or I leave the room. Pisses my wife off.
It was either watch them or watch 3 Twilight movies. The choice was easy.
I’m with Apache insofar as having seen the Swedish “Tatoo” as a bore.
As a movie it’s main purpose is for entertainment. I liked the Swedish versions– they were entertaining. I never really took away anything else from the film that I didn’t already know. That is to say, raping women and corporate malfeasance is bad. Had I not read about who Stig Larssen was I would have never made any of the communist connections you seemed to make in the film. I think you are overstating them. Depicting corporate malfeasance in movies is nothing new and it has been used to create adversarial narratives for quite some time. Bottom line is: don’t bash an entertaining movie because the man who created the books it was based on was a commie.
As you say, corporate malfeasance is not a new subject in Hollywood. So if we can’t really slam this movie as Communist, do you think there’s more sense in deriding it as unoriginal? Practically every other movie that makes it to theaters these days carries the subtext of Corporations Suck, so I think we can be pardoned for jumping to conclusions when the subject turns up YET AGAIN.
Yes. Always empower those who are out to kill you.
For Art’s sake.
I agree. Too much is being read into these. I found the Swedish movies gripping and suspenseful. I watched them on Netflix in rapid succession.
“Depicting corporate malfeasance in movies is nothing new and it has been used to create adversarial narratives for quite some time.”
Pity that’s the ONLY plot line available to writers, any more.
Hey, how about fanatical jihadists plot to … no, too unbelievable.
By the way, you called a movie about violent rape and serial killing “‘entertainment.” Says a lot about how far we’ve come in desensitizing people (see “pro-choice”). I’m willing to bet you’ll find the sequels boring because you’ve “been there, done that.” Great.
Merry Christmas.
Exactly.
Sometimes I wonder how we can continue to justify thinking of ourselves as a “civilized” society when we pay film makers to entertain us with movies like this one.
There’s a difference between having an outlet for violent expression and acting on violence in unjustified ways…
Boxing is real: that’s entertainment.
I guess if you are into vicarious living this is fine. I am just not into
that type of lifestyle so guess I am just not hype enough to fully appreciate all that it offers……thank God
Thanks for confirming what I already suspected based on the raging reviews coming from the usual sources.
Heaven will be a place where we don’t have to endure weak-spined lemmings on the left telling us how we JUST HAVE TO LOVE sermons produced by the communist party and then endure further aggravation from guys 11bravo dig the violent rape scenes and Jazzy J either pretend or not get that it is blatant anti-capitalist propaganda. At least Bravo11 is honest that he loves the horror, but Jazzy J come on, – pretending it should not be called out for its intended purpose is like pretending you watch the porno for the good writing and killer production. Hey, whatever floats your boat.. I’m just saying let’s not pretend that it is something other than what 11Bravo was man enough to admit.
I dunno becky, It depends on what you mean by anti-capitalist. But I would reject this idea. I don’t think most people would see it that way. And if it is communist propaganda the director did a bad job showing it. How are the movies are portraying that?
Good Lord. The books (and the movie) are really that bad?
My wife loves the books. She’s been pressing me to read them. Now I’ll have to ask her why.
Do you like Spy Novels from the Cold War Era?
I’m talking Matt Helm, Joe Gall, Kremlin Letter, Et. Al.
If the answer is Yes, then you’ll like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, if Not, then you’ll not like it much.
The books are written in that style, and look at life from that angle.
“Do you like Spy Novels from the Cold War Era?
I’m talking Matt Helm, Joe Gall, Kremlin Letter, Et. Al.”
So you are saying that his wife likes those types of books (Spy Novels)? I doubt she would enjoy those and it is most likely something else in this book that is appealing to her.
It’s not that bad, and I think the article is a little overwrought. I have a low tolerance for stories that are actually propaganda, but I bought the first book in the series for an airplane ride, and it was fine. Interesting enough to pass the time, and I didn’t feel especially bashed over the head with tiresome axe-grinding.
The characters are pretty forgettable. They’re poorly developed, flat, and all of them are essentially disagreeable and petty narcissists whom I would not care to get to know better. The villains are even more cartoonish, and the premises are generally ludicrous. But the action moves along nicely, and there are absorbing twists and turns. You read it just to find out what happens, and who did what, and that’s good enough for a cheap crime novel. I admit, I have no desire to read the rest of the books, because I’m sure they’re no better written than the first, and I have no desire to see the movie, because without the time to put together the slow train-wreck aspects of the crime novel, it will just be all the most lurid scenes. Since these are crude and gratuitous, not even necessary to move the plot along, I’ll just be nauseated to no purpose — it will be Friday The 13th, Part XXXVII.
One reason the underlying philosophy of the author may not be especially bothersome is because he’s just to clumsy about it (or maybe the English translation doesn’t do any subtlety in the original Swedish justice). For example, he starts each chapter with some tidbit like “One third of all Swedish women say they’ve been sexually assaulted” or whatever. It’s such a sophomoric clunky thing your eyes just glaze over and move to the next sentence, the slogan having left absolutely no impression on your brain.
I don’t know if I quite agree that the appearance of Nazis is such a strange thing in a Swedish novel in which past behaviour (in the 40s and 50s) is relevant. I believe the Nordic countries have a complex relationship to Nazism because of the very strong sympathies in those countries during the time in question. Call it the Quisling problem. It’s sort of like the fact that American novels set in the South have often had secret ugly pasts involving slaves embedded in them. It’s just part of the cultural background.
So what you’re saying is that you’re so inured to misandry, that it no longer bothers you? Shouldn’t that bother you?
I’m more interested in the mistake in his will. How can the rest of us avoid this mistake?
What, you want to leave your fortune to the Communist Party? 8)
I have yet to get past the 2nd chapter of the first book. All I knew about it up until this point is that it was a best seller and there is a movie coming out. The names are confusing and it’s boring so far. I put it down last week and have yet to pick it back up. I still might attempt to finish it if I get bored enough.
Don’t forget that the hero (a cheap cypher for Larsson himself) is sexually irresistible to essentially every woman with whom he deals. But that’s OK since they want him and he’s so pure of heart. Pfeh.
I need to start writing books where women fall all over themselves for a chubby, charming guy I’ll call, lemme see, “BlogDog.” Yeah. That’s the ticket.
Oddly, like Hitchens Larsson was a Trotskyst.
And to answer to JJ, yes it was communist propaganda.
I purchased the books based on the recommendation of, of all people, El Rushbo. I thought they were pretty good. Yes, almost completely unbelievable, but the genre is usually unbelievable: it relies on a lot of action (and in this case, gore) to keep the plot holes from becoming too evident. E.g., in Book 3, Lisbeth hacks into multiple protected computers, email accounts, etc.–all on a BlackBerry type handheld, while under observation in a hospital. I am happy when my BlackBerry gets me onto InstaPundit.
I had not really put the wealth/Nazi connection into context (I am one of those who missed that plot hole–LOL). I probably won’t see the movie. This kind of crud may be prevalent, but I don’t need to support it.
Depicting corporate malfeasance in movies is nothing new
No, it isn’t, although projecting the sins of socialist brutality and mass murder onto folks who usually just steal money seems unbalanced. Dishonest capitalists are stealers of spoons in the larger scheme of things.
But did you like the movie?
Sounds like a personal vwendetta by you. I am an avowed capitalist who has read all three books and seen all three original movies.
The movies are decent, but the books are simply excellent. The author does not have an agenda. He does not go on an anti-capitalism binge. This is a STORY about a particular woman and a particular NAZI sympathizing, criminal, businessman.
The stories are more an indictment of the Swedish culture and the government it spawned. And the other book’s portrayal of the Swedish intelligence service as entirely incompetent and lacking tradecraft.
I think you are wrong, with an axe of your own to grind, projecting your own demons onto the book and movie. Maybe a little jealous of the success of the author too? No? Yes!!!
Well, I know I’m always up for a good, hard-hitting indictment of Swedish culture.
right on QuantumSam….
i think the author of this review is entirely deluded in his rabid ripping of Stig Larsson’s work. i didn’t detect a single hint of anything “commie” in any of the three books. besides, you really don’t have to be a commie to see fascists all over the place…because they ARE all over the place….including, likely, the writer of this review. i don’t think that Larsson’s left-wing convictions particularly showed through in the books…he was merely telling a story…he said he wrote them for his own amusement…i don’t think he was trying to impress the writer of this review in the least….he couldn’t have cared less, i suspect, what that writer would think of his work.
i found the first book incredibly slow in getting started….i was bored stiff for much of the first third of the book…but then Larsson was setting the scene and the dramatis personae….and once he got past that, the books fairly sizzled with tension and intrigue….i found them a bit too blood thirsty for me, but other than that, extremely well written (at least the translation)…
i really did like Lisbeth Salander…she is quite the character….
Larsson hinted that he wrote the story in a way to make amends for having witnessed a rape at age 15, and being unable to intervene….it bothered him the rest of his life…and so the book’s title…”Men who hate women”….i thought it was a really very well written book, exposing the fact that there are many men out there in the world, who really do hate women, for whatever reasons….
as for the discovering of and revealing Fascist undercurrents of various current events, that didn’t require any communist sympathising…only a clear eye.
Larsson in his ordinary life, also spent most of his time as a magazine journalist investigating and outing the various Fascist (Nazi) right wing criminals in Sweden…he also worked on revealing the dirty deeds of members of the organised crime groups…as a result, he was the subject of many death threats, such that he was afraid to get married to his live-in girlfriend for fear that his living address would be revealed in the papers, and his enemies would know where he lived….much to his subsequent danger.
i wasn’t impressed with the actor who place Mikael Blomqvist in the Swedish movie…too much like your average movie hero…not enough like the Mikael Blomqvist of the books….Lisbeth Salander, however was wonderfully played by Noomi Rapace…she really WAS Lisbeth in my mind.
i had to fast forward through the most violent scenes, because i don’t like nightmares that much, and those scenes would be nightmare triggers for me….especially if watched later at night, before bed…but luckily i COULD fast forward through them…i knew what they were anyways from reading the book.
i must admit that the Swedish movie made a lot more sense to me, having read the books first, than it would have otherwise….
the problem with the reviewer here, is that he doesn’t seem to know that there have been and continue to be many right wing Fascist Nazi types in Sweden to this day, as there have been in Norway (think of that recent mass murderer, Brevik), and in Germany as well…don’t forget that Sweden was “neutral” in WW2 and was NOT invaded by Germany…one of the few states in Europe that was not openly Nazified by invasion….the reason for this was that Sweden was already Nazified enough, that many of the citizens sympathised with the Nazi cause….they had similar brown shirted “armies” of committed Nazis…they had all the propaganda and all that stuff…they were working hand in glove with the Germans, providing them with steel, and iron ore……..for the German war effort.
when the war ended, the Swedish Nazis faded, more or less into the woodwork…but they didn’t altogether disappear, only went into hiding….so Stig Larsson made it his job to out them, when they were committing crimes against the state, or the people of Sweden. He also outed criminal industrialists too, just like Blomqvist did in the books….
so to the writer of the review…don’t let your right wing authoritarian world view delude you entirely about Stig Larsson and his mission in Sweden, nor his books, which were after all, written merely as a source of amusement for himself…
if you have run into Kurt Wallander (fictional detective in Henning Mankell’s series of Wallander crime stories), who also operates in Sweden, you will see that there are a lot of similarities between the books, in that Wallander has to deal with crooked industrialists as well, and also runs into Fascists, as well as left over Russian KGB Mafioso types…and i don’t think that one could claim that Mankell is a raving Trotskyite….
i also think that Stig Larsson was a far more reasonable guy than Mr. Hitchens was…Trotskyite or not.
What is a right wing Fascist Nazi type anyway? Right of what and left of what? I thought that Nazis espouse the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which is a form of communism – less so than Stalinists, but moreso than social progressiveness. Fascists on the other hand, are the most hard-right nationalists, much more than capitalists.
Fascism has nothing to do with left or right wing political leaning. The Nazis in Germany were fascists, yet were left wing extremists (never mind what they’ve been since called) not dissimilar to communists in their thinking (which is one of the reasons they were so hated by communists, sectarian violence is always worse if the differences between the sects are small).
Similar in Italy in the 1930s and ’40s.
Enjoyed the first movie (Swedish one), the last two less so. She’s by far the most interesting character in the movies, and spends the majority of one of them in a hospital recuperating from being shot.
The books were basically Swedish pulp fiction. Not great literature, but not horrible either. I did not find them especially anti-capitalistic; if anything I took this to be a fairly accurate description of socialist Sweden. (Texas it ain’t, even in real life.)
All that aside, I do not expect the American version of the movie(s) to be worth watching when the Swedish ones are perfectly serviceable and remain fairly close to the source material. I cringe to think of what changes will be made to keep American audiences involved. I don’t remember any explosions, and only one car chase.
It has been a long time since I saw an ad for a movie I actually wanted to see, and this one is no different.
The bad writing, predictable plots, rehashed story ideas, and lowest-common-denominator pandering coming out of Hollywood these days is disgusting. It’s no wonder ticket sales are plumetting.
It used to be that TV was bad (and it still is, for the most part), but there are some shows with far better writing, acting, and artistic merit than anything being delivered by the Hollywood movie sausage grinder.
In some of the more female-dominated corners of the internet (fan fiction, etc) these books are loved for the ‘grrl power’ aspect, particularly wrt the violent revenge on men component.
Plus ‘punk [read 'cool'] computer hacker is appealing to dorky young women.
It’s contemporary cyber punk: surprised more writers haven’t doubled down. Mostly it’s an SFiction arena.
I have to agree with Jazzy J. I read all three books and watched the Swedish versions and never once came away with the impression that all capitalists are fascist sexual abusers of women. Were they great works of art, not really, but they were entertaining.
If you go into a movie or start reading a book expecting agiprop then you will certainly find it. Just look at the reaction Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy received from certain race-based activist groups over the perception that all of Mordor’s minions were dark-skinned and the fellowship were all light-skinned.
I found the book unreadable. Tried twice to read it. Once in audio form and once written. Absolutely nothing in it was worth my time. Hackneyed plot, predictable characters and stereotypes. Now, my son (age 24) loved it. Generational thing, I guess.
It’s a politically correct world and what better way to depict a lot of rape and violence than to say the subject matter is anti-rape and anti-violence and so needs a lot of that to make the point of how disgusting it is? Not exactly new. In the end it’s just one of a long string of movies that pander to pushing the envelope at the expense of an artistic imperative. That’s Hollywood. It’s actually amazing how much good stuff makes it to the screen considering. Maybe it’s time to watch “Vatel” or “In Country” one more time.
Somehow, I watched the whole icky thing. I totally regret it. Wish I’d read this first.
“Depicting corporate malfeasance in movies is nothing new and it has been used to create adversarial narratives for quite some time.”
Not a coincidence.
The Larsson trilogy is nothing but a celebration of dysfunction, deviance, and darkness. The popularity of this series s a good indicator of our own society’s illness and I do not see the appeal of it beyond sick and twisted voyeurism.
quite the opposite. It’s an expose of how depravities are glossed over and condoned by society because people don’t want to have to cope with them.
From a girl being forced into psychiatric care to shut her up from exposing her father (will not say what she would expose, not to ruin the plot) to a sect being able to traffic prostitutes into the country at will with the cooperation of politicians, and disposing of the girls by killing them in gruesome ways with everyone turning a blind eye, it’s an accusation of the instruments of the Swedish state from the 1940s on, a period where that state was ruled almost exclusively by leftists.
I haven’t seen the movie and it has been some time since I’ve read the books, but isn’t Blomkvist a capitalist, the owner of the magazine. Salander’s employer is shown in a good light. The heroes prevail through their own wit. The government is certainly not shown as a generous benefactor, especially in the subsequent two books.
I thought of them more along the lines of a Jim Thompson over the top look at the evil of man. I hope I enjoy the movie more than I liked The Killer Inside Me movie a couple of years ago.
I think I’ll watch “Take Shelter” instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Shelter
I read this book and came away thinking that the writer had some serious issues with women and sex. I don’t really care if he did but I do care that the writer becomes so visible in a work of fiction. He was writing fantasy sadomasochistic hate porn that got released under the guise of literature. Bleh.
I enjoyed the Swedish versions and thought the acting was decent. Of course, I watched as fiction and thus forgave the anti-corporate moralizing.
All the same, when do you think Disney will do a re-make of “The Happiest Millionaire”?
I found the trilogy captivating. The story IMHO was far less interesting than the characters. What was interesting was how a marginal personality responded in a world she wanted no part of but was forced to contend with. The plot was merely an unimportant background for her responses.
See TGWTDT for the characters, the story is secondary.
I should stress I mean the Swedish movies, not the books which I never read.
BTW I found nothing political in any of the movies except anti-Nazism.
I heard Daniel Craig interviewed yesterday on NPR (of course) about the film and his role as Blomkvist. He called the character fiercely moral (I think I have the wording correct) which caused me to pause and wonder which character he was actually playing. In the book I read Blomkvist publishes accusations about a business he cannot, or will not, verify, he is divorced, he routinely sleeps with a coworker, and business partner, who is married to another man, and beds two other women including the youthful and socially retarded Salander. Yes, quite a moral man indeed. He also turns out to be one of the heroes of this so called “Men Who Hate Women” story; is he one of the haters or is it just accidental irony that he so easily sleeps around with married and/or vulnerable women?
That said, as entertainment goes, I enjoyed the book, mostly by refusing to pay attention to the real story Larssen was telling.
The idea that Swedish industrialists had close Nazi connections is hardly contrived. Sweden benfited hugely from Nazi money; it basically paid for their liberal social programs. The government in Sweden continued Nazi-style eugenics programs for decades after WWII.
correct. The book is historically correct as to its background, even if the characters and exact events are fictional (let’s hope
) it’s a setting that many a Swede would likely be able to recognise as at least feasible (iow, if the events unfolding would happen in Sweden today, authorities and society would react pretty much as they do in the books).
Read the books and watched the movies. I enjoyed the first novel, but the further one goes the lower the quality and my absurd it gets.
My takeaways: if these novels are an accurate representation of modern Swedish life, what a terrible terrible place it is. Since I doubt they are accurate what a horrible horrible world view Larssen had. Poor man, he missed the beauty of life.
I agree with Jazzy J. I didn’t detect this undercurrent of communist propaganda and themes, it was well worth the ticket price to me for nearly 3 hours of cinema entertainment.
“Bottom line is: don’t bash an entertaining movie because the man who created the books it was based on was a commie.”
Okay, how about because he was a “hypocrite”? How about just plain old “irresponsible”? Don’t think that writing about or showing supreme acts of violence doesn’t affect people? The very things they claim to be against? But we all know why these scenes are there: to shock and gain attention to sell books and movie tickets and to make lots and lots of evil money. (Oh, that’s right, Larsson died before the books were published. That makes them okay.)
I know, I know: if you don’t like it, don’t read it or see it. I won’t.
Now I understand why all those hipsters & trust fund baby undergrads were so enamored of this novel. It was standard epquipment, like the any-season wool knit cap, ironic t-shirt, intifada scarf and gender-confused eye glasses. If a book/movie can express hatred for Capitalism in the form of sexual violence the Left would naturally eat it up. And this is the crowd that condemned Rand as simplistic.
Rand was simplistic; she just found a very verbose way to present herself. Who really needs to be beaten over the head with a philosophy of selfishness? We already know how to be selfish.
I could not read the other two books. I thought ALL of this when I read the first book and then read articles (bios) about him. His father gets the estate, not his long time live in girlfriend. I guess that old conservative value known as “marriage” might have helped her out, but alas, they were convinced it was for mean, old capatalists. Big Sigh.
Thanks for a cogent review. Despite the hype and tongue-washing from fools like Ebert, one can’t help but think this one has floperoo written all over it. I was intrigued until I saw the trailer. The trailer is the kiss of death. She’s scary weird/ugly, like some horror flick monster. 158 minutes of liberal cliche? Good night. Word of mouth will have this egg fried by Christmas.
Of course Ebert would love this piece of drivel. The guy has gone from being interesting film critic to a pompous bore. He no longer is just content with a being a film critic, lately he seems he trying to become some kind public intellectual.
The impression left by a documentary on Stig Larssen that recently aired on TV was that he was a leftie, and unlike the hero in his trilogy, was a pale-faced, soft, nerdy, bookwormish sort of guy, but it managed to give the fact of his ardent support for Communism a rather soft focus, and mentioned nothing about any intent on his part to will his money to the Communist Party.
The documentary focused, instead, on the fact that Larssen’s huge fortune to be (his soon to be wildly successful and profitable books had not even all been published at the time of his sudden death due to a heart attack at age 56–attributed to his long hours and lack of sleep, lack of exercise, very bad diet and eating habits, and tremendous intake of coffee–and were not then the international best sellers that they turned out to be, nor were the very successful and profitable film versions of his trilogy even on the horizon) was inherited by his estranged family, rather than by his live in girlfriend of 30 years (also apparently a Communist), who, the documentary quoted as saying, had been the one Larssen had said he wanted to will his money to. But, because Larssen, at that point an average, not especially successful writer/reporter, inexplicably left no written will, under Swedish law the money went to his family.
As for the Swedish film versions of his trilogy, they were fast-paced, violent, full of brutality, sex, misogynistic, visually striking, and pretty over the top. They portrayed just the kind of corrupt Right-wing Swedish society that the far Left/Communist /supposedly anti-Nazi investigative group/publisher Larssen worked for in real life tried to portray; a Swedish society that was conservative, apparently moral, law-abiding, and successful on the surface—but was a society that was, in reality, actually seething beneath this deceptive surface with a stew of murderers, sexual deviants, Nazis, and corrupt businessmen, lawyers, and government officials; a corrupt Swedish society and situation that obviously required a change to Communism to correct these problems.
I read these books and I couldn’t believe how detestable the lead characters were. Blomquist is a self-righteous womanizer (oh, the women don’t mind, of course — Larssen’s fantasy, perhaps?) and Salander is a hacker who invades people’s privacy and even destroys them without a hitch of conscience. And we’re supposed to see these two as the heroes!
As I read the news stories about the hacker group, Anonymous, and how they set themselves up as persecutors of those with whom they disagree, I am always reminded of these books. These are scary times and characters like the leads in Larssen’s books are examples of exactly why this is so.
The foreign films and storyline were great. I don’t see any sense in a butchered Hollywood version simply because people can’t read.
The movie (and the book) uses so many titilating baubles and bangles, sure to maximize it’s appeal to a voyeur audience, and maximize box office. The pervs are all corporate or part of the parole board and the victim becomes the one who can expose the whole dysfunctional family secret in the eye of the media, and the bad guys are exposed.
Who knows, it’s probably an exposé about MF Global for all we know.
Larsson was a leftist, possessed with ideas of racism, feminism and right wing extremism. He was blind for the left extremism that was much more present in the society when he wrote the books. I am disappointed that his books are such a hit and now these films. People will get a somewhat peculiar picture of the Swedish society.
Thanks for the review. I was wondering if I should buy the book for my new Kindle. Now I know it’s best avoided, and the movie as well, even though I like Daniel Craig. Rooney Mara just looks spooky.
Every book, movie, blog, etc has some ideological bias it’s trying to sell. They can be directly opposed to my own viewpoint and I can still find them entertaining. I can spot the pitch, most of us can. When the pitch is too overt, too shrill, too breathless it turns me off. Which is why I find Boot’s reviews to be so tedious, as if he’s some clumsy politburo hack writing reviews for Pravda. The whole idea of a reviewer has limited use at best. I’d rather read or watch the work and judge for myself.
Commie ideology? Gratuitous X-rated sex? In Sweden? Gasp!
I found the gloomy settings and weird characters to be strangely entertaining. Yeah, the political undertow was blatant as hell, but it somehow seemed natural to the storyline.
yup. It reflects Swedish society. And a high percentage of Nazi sympathisers within the upper classes of 1940s Swedish (as indeed all of European and North American) society is a historical fact, one that often is glossed over in much of what’s written about the period on both sides of the Atlantic.
And corruption in the media and politics? GASP! Who’d have thought!
To me it read more like a small businessman trying to survive against stiff competition from a large established base with ties to left wing politicians, and a girl suffering from severe government intrusion in her life by that same left wing government (Sweden has had a communist style government for decades).
Meh..Depictions of rape and torture are more nauseating than entertaining. I saw the first of the Swedish films. It may have been well made and acted, but it was absolutely painful to watch. As far as Larsen’s sympathies to Communism, it’s not much of a stretch to connect the GWDT’s Larsen’s world view. The villains are corporate types and family members. It’s one thing to depict corporate malfeasance and family dysfunction as adversarial narratives, it’s another to depict them as soul-torturing tools of Fascism.
I’m no prude though read the 1st book. Disturbing, ‘gotcha’ bulls hit to say the least.
Attempted to read the 2nd book, it’s far worse.
This book and willing to wager the movie is downright disgusting.
And ‘surprise’, it’s a Hollywood remake.
I’m not going to bother with the movie, because I’m not really much for movies.
However, the books were more a neat (if not strikingly original) play on the crime/detective genre. Larsson had an encyclopedic knowledge of mystery fiction, and he used it all.
His political views strike me as typical Swedish – at one and the same time, socialist and enamored of sound management. Not all the corporations are evil, and the main protagonists are not exactly living in monasteries.
It’s all right to say that you don’t like the book series, or the movies. You don’t have to make everything political. That’s a leftist trait.
Yes, that is a leftist trait, which is why, in books written by leftists, I look for it.
Liked the review. Minor quibble – many Swedish industrial fortunes were in fact derived from collaboration/war profiteering with Nazi Germany.
The Swedish ‘socialist utopia’ owes much to its Nazi supporting past.
Thanks for the heads-up. Not that I was going to watch it anyway. Looks like a turd.
I found the Swedish version so shrilly and clumsily propagandized as to be unwatchable. I don’t know what the Hollywood take is, but from your review I’m certain it will be no more subtle than its precursor. As for the offensively prurient nature of the sadistic sex scenes, for a bunch who loudly and endlessly profess how terribly shocked and appalled they are about what they assure us is society’s wholesale degradation of women, the movie folks somehow find a way to put great steaming piles of it in their product.
Also, it will be interesting to see who will be the first left-side reviewer to draw a favorable connection between Lisbeth Salander and the Occupy crowd as a way to gin up support.
“… but I do care that the writer becomes so visible in a work of fiction. He was writing fantasy sadomasochistic hate porn that got released under the guise of literature.”
A person could be forgiven for thinking that a good many movies these days are some nerd’s fantasy life, written down and put on film.
I thought that the bio/documentary about Larssen mentioned above, and about the phenomenal success of his books, and the controversy about his family inheriting what may be in the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, gave me the distinct negative impression of Larssen’s family as a gloomy, stodgy, not too bright, and not very likeable (or worthy) group of people, and the definite impression, as well, that an injustice had been done, when they and not Larssen’s girlfriend of 30 years inherited.
As for a new American film version of the first book of Larssen’s trilogy, well, I can’t really see the point unless, of course, the object was—rather than to create a moneymaking film of your own–to play the part of a parasite, to be a Remora, and to just fasten on and drink the blood, and make your money off of an already successful moneymaker. This was, after all, a trilogy about Sweden, written by a Swedish writer, and portrayed in three very successful Swedish films. Why was an American version necessary?
Intellectually and morally bankrupt, far Left Hollywood—our very own modern day Sodom and Gomorrah– just can’t make movies that large numbers of people want to watch anymore and that are successful/profitable, so, we just keep getting more and more increasingly blurry carbon copies of past successes; remakes and sequels to films that were successful in the past. Thus, Rocky I, II, III…XXVII, etc., etc.
It’s pretty pathetic, really.
I’m wondering what American leftists are going to say about this “indictment of Swedish society.” Aren’t they always holding Sweden up as an example of a successful socialist country? Isn’t the Swedish socialized healthcare system the model we should be emulating?
I’m predicting complete cognitive dissonance. They’ll ignore the “Sweden is run by Nazis” angle and praise the sex, violence, and women-as-victims-of-the-patriarchy nonsense.
couldnt get through the “girl with the dragon tattoo”
the author seemed quite obsessed with all the lesbo sex romps
i didnt see the book as communist propaganda although it was clearly written by one of a lefty mindset
my initial impression of lizbeth salander was the lefty version of a mitch rapp
A slight quibble, but I seem to remember Bob Guccione—publisher of Penthouse and producer of “Caligula”—had originally planned to make a film of serious, artistic value which just happened to feature Penthouse Pets and explicit sex. (See a contemporary interview with Guccione.)
I read a lot, I’ve worked in 4 different bookstores (managed 3 of them) and I like mystery novels. I also have an independant streak that tends to drive me away from whatever “flavor of the month” is all the craze right now, but after running across the “Girl With…” books for so long, I decided to give the first one a try. It struck me as the prototypical modern suspense novel, what Ambrose Bierce was talking about when he defined a novel, in the “Devil’s Dictionary” as “a short story, padded.” It’s incredibly long, and more than half of it is exposition regarding the main characters, in other words backstory that has little if anything to do with the main plot. The real mystery (who kidnapped or killed the little girl 40 years ago) is interesting, but doesn’t really get started until after halfway through the movie.
I read the second book after, expecting less backstory the 2nd time around, and was amazed he concocted more. The plot’s about as thin (with the bonus that the author knows little if anything about handguns) but the continuing exposition killed the book for me, mostly. When the 3rd comes out in paperback I’ll probably wind up reading it, but I won’t be that enthusiastic.
The author of this review (which I understand is of the movie) obscures some of the points of the book. The author is relentlessly liberal on the idea of social justice and so forth, and feminism. The book is peppered with little introductory passages, which are typically fantastic statements ala “Half the women in the world are raped every week” or some such (that’s not an exact quote; I may be exaggerating) but the government guy who tries to exploit Lisbeth is clearly not a typical liberal target: he’s a government guardian, appointed to make sure this young woman’s life is properly managed! It’s more of a socialism-run-amook portion of the book, and the author plays (some would say overplays) it to the hilt.
There’s also the strange aspect that the main character, Blomqvist, has a long-standing affair with one of his colleagues, who’s married. Her husband knows she goes off to sleep with this other guy regularly, and accepts it somehow as part of the marriage. Whether he has a girl on the side isn’t revealed (as far as I know). That part of the story struck me, anyway, as something a college fratboy would think up: “I get to have sex with all the women I want, even the married ones, without any of the responsibilities of being in a relationship.” Since author Larsson wasn’t married to the woman he lived with for some years, you have to wonder how she felt about this…maybe they’re more “liberated” in Sweden.
Anyway, the book always struck me as pretty much a Swedish version of a John Grisham novel: a good plot with way too much exposition hung on it. That sort of thing gets cut out of a movie script, so the result is usually *better* than the book.
Congrats, Stieg, your’s is the 1,000,000th book on serial killers.
In fact, double congrats. Your book kills lots of women and thousands of trees simultaneously. A praiseworthy feat, indeed.
I can hardly wait for your next serial killer book.
And thanks for your lack of imagination. It’s much easier to read a story one has read before. It saves ever so much effort when one need only be revulsed while reading.
The Author(Stieg) is dead.
Didn’t read the books, but did see the Swedish movies.
Found them very entertaining (especially the first).
Lisabeth is Dirty Harry.
I actually saw the movies as an indictment of liberal society, Lisabeth is the cure, she meets out vigilante justice, she has moral clarity (with regard to violence).
Perhaps the best comment on the whole trilogy is that of Noomi Rapace who was asked if Lisbeth Salander was still in her. Her response:
“When I finished the third movie she was living in me. She was in control. She took over my life for one and a half years. It was brutal. I remember my friends asking me when I was going to come back and how deep was I going to go so I felt like I changed a lot when she was in me. I felt like I was occupied by her.
“When I was finished, I remember the last day of the last take, the producers and everybody wanted to celebrate. We had been shooting for a year and we were finally at the end and I just remember needing to go to the restroom. I went in and starting vomiting for like 45 minutes. I couldn’t stop and I’m never sick. I didn’t know what was going on but I just remember telling people to toast without me. It was almost like my body was throwing Lisbeth out of my system. I remember it vividly– like an exorcism, thinking, “I’m done, you need to leave me now.”
If a few more people would vomit over the movies perhaps producers would wise up, and leave off the garbage films.
(Just use a web search engine for “Noomi Rapace vomit” to find the quote)
Haven’t read the books or seen any of the movies. Was thinking of seeing the remake, now, not so much. So I can’t really discuss or opinion-ate on the books, movies, or author.
However, being of Scandinavian background, I am somewhat perplexed about the depiction of rape in Sweden in the books and in the movie. Sexual mores in Sweden have been justly infamous for years. The actual police statistics on rape in that country showed that it was a very rare crime for many decades. Until the EU immigration crisis brought large numbers of Muslim males into the Scandinavian countries. Last years statistics showed another year of large increases in the incidence of rape, and one other thing, almost every single rape committed that reporting year was committed by a Islamic male. I guess the Nazi-rapist faction just lost interest or have all been caught.
Read the first book. Drivel. Page-filling, boring drivel. Only loved by people who read one book a year, and are told to read it by some shnook off the television.
From the article:
“What it doesn’t offer is the slightest instance of plausibility, psychological depth, or even clever dialogue.”
Sounds just like Liberalism.
I haven’t even seen a trailer for this trash, just the print ads which show some photoshopped head of a perturbed female against a bleak winter backdrop, and her face is all mutilated with metal pierced through her extremities. God knows where the dragon tat is at.
Makes me want to HUUUUURL!
Sh*t books….I’m certain the movies have the same sh*tty sense of life. No thanks.
This movie sounds appalling. Thank you for such a thorough review. You’ve saved my husband and me money and time we can spend doing something else.
Let’s see where to start. The first 50 pages of the book were not boring, they were extremely prescient regarding the current world banking situation. If you are not an informed person you will find them boring. The translation of the book was amazing capturing the feel of the idiom of the language, without any awkwardness. The glimpse into Swedish culture was very interesting, the gloomy depression from not enough sun, the cramped tiny living quarters, the overall fatalistic atmosphere of a culture in decline, due to the loss of its moral compass, and sexual nihilism, was well portrayed. The Swedes were in bed with the Nazis, sorry if you weren’t paying attention in history class. The governmental corruption that is a suppurating wound everywhere in the world is a worthy subject of any author, and while certainly other subjects exist like jihadism, they spring ultimately from failed government. As far as the sex crimes go, perhaps you have not paid attention to the news lately. Once you begin the decline in morals you get more, not less sex crime. The sex slave trade is very real in Europe, 10 years or so ago a kiddy porn ring in Belgium that many said led high up into the government and Judiciary was busted, and there have been many lesser incidents. Sex tourism in some of the more liberal countries in Europe involving animals and other disgusting phenomena of our time is a reality. As a conservative business person I was surprised and disappointed to read the bio of the author AFTER reading the Girl with the Dragonfly tattoo, so perhaps the reviewer let his prior knowledge spoil what was a very good read, that was also spot on about crony capitalism, and its evils, governmental corruption and its ultimately petty motivations resulting in horrific evil, as well as the depression caused by having everything you think you want sexually. NO ONE is happy in this book. The biggest message I got was that sexual license was not the ticket to a cheery outlook on life. Instead depravity surprise surprise depraves the spirit.
As we bail out yet more bankrupt banks, as the politicians line their pockets and sell us out, and censor us with internet control, and even suspension of habeas corpus, as ever more depraved crimes are committed by our grunting animal house citizenry, it is a puzzle how and why this book zoomed to the top of the bestseller lists and has stayed there, since it is according to this reviewer about nothing relevant to our times.
Sorry, we already knew Sweden was a quisling (Norway!) collaborationist pack of dirtbags that somehow dodged the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
We already knew about the whole kiddie porn problem in Europe.
We already knew that Europe’s socialistic policies were going to bite them in the ass, eventually.
That doesn’t excuse shoddy writing, crappy characterization, and the overall poor material the books are filled with. Stieg was a BAD WRITER. Deal with it.
You know, I think I realised about the age of 10 that 1) the people responsible for the books/comics/movies/TV shows I enjoyed didn’t necessarily think the same way as me, and 2) it would in fact be incredibly dumb to always assume they did.
I get the feeling that a lot of people here can’t eat rice without thinking of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The Lisabeth Solander trilogy of movies tells the story of a remarkable girl in threatening circumstances, nothing more. How anyone could read some sort of pro-communist or OWS message into any of it seems odd; the movies were clearly not written as a moving Rorschach test. In any event the Solander character was one of the most original I’ve ever seen. The plots were merely her vehicles, not the other way around. By the end of the story the onlooker understands and respects her, a Citizen Kane with an attitude, except more likeable. Someone who was dealt a bad hand but played it to victory through brains and gumption. Her character was the story.
i.e. one more noteworthy film made by la la land…..
Over and over again the public has opted for films which do not run on this track, but they keep spewing this genre out in hopes that the public will soon see what they are missing. . .
(((sighs)))
All of this is true…
But I still enjoyed the films, they are very suspenseful and exciting.
Thank you for the history of the author and I will keep all this in mind when going to the new American version.
After seeing this film I went to the diner for something eat and ran into a friend who sat with and discussed having just seen the film. I told him it was God awful. Some guy in his late fifities with a bad hair cut round glases and a jacket with cuffs walks over and says “You obviously are one those people who lacks the intellectual capacity to recognize the films brilliance” He wasn’t making a joke, he had smarmy grin on face. So I looked him in the yes and said “Get lost” and he did.
Saw the Swedish versions of all three films and, besides the omnipresent leftard assumptions (to which I am immune) which permeate virtually every European movie, they were entertaining. The 3rd movie stretched credulity to the limit, though.
Family fare? Hardly.
BTW, “Let Me In” (the American version of “Let the Right One In”) pales in comparison to the Norwegian version. My guess would be that the same will be true of “The Girl…” series.
The entire premise seemed stupid. I’ve stopped going to movies because at the end of most of them I’m left saying, “That’s it?”.
The entire “Millenium Trilogy” pivots on nothing more and nothing less than the straight male fantasy of nailing a lesbian.