THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO: dark secrets Swedish style

There's not a single wasted moment in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. No pointless subplots, no meaningless conversations, and none of those moody lingering shots with no apparent purpose.
That's pretty good going for a film with a two and a half hour running time.
Everything and everyone that director Niels Arden Opley puts on screen has but one purpose - to drive the story forward. And it's one heck on a story.

Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is hired by the elderly patriarch of the wealthy Vanger family to find out what happened to his favourite niece, Harriet, who disappeared forty years earlier from a family gathering at the Vanger estate on a remote island off the Swedish coast.
Blomkvist is joined in his search by an enigmatic young computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). Heavily tattooed and adorned with numerous facial piercings Salander is a closed book, concealing a troubled past behind a wall of aggressive silence. They make an odd but effective couple pooling their talents to probe a murky and disturbing mystery and uncover secrets which put their lives in mortal danger.
You might imagine from all the hype surrounding the novel on which this film is based that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (TGWTDT) is the greatest thing since the invention of the printing press. It's not.
It's actually not that different from the dozens of investigative thrillers produced by British tv in recent years. That's meant as praise not criticism. The best of these tv thrillers create flesh and blood characters and immerse them in complex stories which keep us hooked until the very end. These shows have the luxury of six or eight fifty minute episodes in which to unfold their story. TGWTDT achieves the same result in just a hundred and fifty minutes without it ever feeling rushed.

Some of the 7 million fans of Stieg Larsson's weighty blockbuster novel may be a little disappointed at what's been left out but there's still plenty of detail here both in the story and the people. Salander is a fascinating character with, I feel, more to reveal than what we learn about her in this first adventure.
A Hollywood remake is already in the works with Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Carey Mulligan and Viggo Mortensen among those rumoured to be heading the cast. While I generally admire these actors I'm afraid that the finished product will be overblown and underwhelming. Tinseltown has a way of smothering the original idea in it's efforts to ramp up and Americanise the action and do away with those pesky subtitles (which really aren't particularly distracting).
Do yourself a favour and catch this original version. The sombre Swedish landscapes and the absence of star names with all the baggage they bring with them, make THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO a refreshing change of pace and style.