Gritty, Stylish And Swedish, What More Could You Want?

Small, sleek, black-haired, androgynous, a human canvas of tattoos and body piercings, Salander is damaged and dangerous. Played by the remarkable Noomi Rapace in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,� the compelling film version of Stieg Larsson’s worldwide best-selling mystery novel, she is also mesmerizing.

   If you read the nearly 600-page English version of the book, you knew it had all the makings of a successful screen thriller. Though he combined hoary mystery formulas — the “locked roomâ€� crime, remote geography, a rich and dysfunctional family hiding generations of secrets — Larsson added big doses of Swedish Nazism, anti-Semitism and misogyny, and several subplots.  And always there was Salander.

   In his gritty but stylish film originally made for Swedish TV, director Niels Arden Oplev has jettisoned some subplots, which many readers devoted to the book may miss, but created a logical, understandable story that flows laterally and inexorably like turning pages.

   The central plot remains:  Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a disgraced magazine journalist convicted of publishing a false story about a corporate magnate.  After resigning from his magazine job, he has a few months’ freedom before beginning a short jail sentence. When reclusive, aging millionaire Henrik Vanger contacts him, he’s willing to listen.

   Vanger’s beloved niece, Harriet, disappeared 40 years earlier during a family gathering on the Vangers’ island in northern Sweden. Vanger believes she was murdered by a member of his own extended family and wants Blomkvist to take a last stab at solving the mystery.

   Meanwhile, Salander is in her separate world.  A cyber-whiz and computer hacker, she works almost sub rosa as a security firm’s best researcher (read information thief). Only in her early 20s, she is still a ward of the state because of past psychological problems.  When her lenient, easy-going legal guardian dies, she is assigned to an entirely unwelcome replacement who doles out her own money in dribs and demands sex in return.

   And he is a brutal sadist.  After an especially painful session, Salander — who speaks so seldom that she often seems mute — takes even more brutal revenge. These are two scenes painful to watch yet integral to the character, both in the book and in the film.

   This back and forth between Salander and Blomkvist’s lives is a bit slow, but when — through carefully plotted events — Salander mounts her black motorcycle and takes to the Swedish highway to join Blomkvist on the Vangers’ island, the pace quickens.There he is investigating Harriet’s case, and the movie takes off and never looks back. 

   Salander and Blomkvist are a curious duo. She so sleek and watchful, like a panther; he, early middle-aged, pockmarked and slightly flabby. When she steals into his room and initiates sex, he is surprised and confused.  Yet afterward there is a bemused look in his eyes and a small smile on his lips. He did not expect this, and it means much to him.  What it means to Salander we’re never sure.

   As a team of sleuths they are complimentary.  She can find nearly anything and retrieve it from cyberspace; he is terrific at laying out evidence logically and following likely leads.  As their probing uncovers an increasingly grisly story of serial murder and disgusting family history, they come to almost read each other’s thoughts.

   Oplev takes full advantage of the beautiful but austere northern Swedish landscape:  the nearly straight highways, icy lakes and frozen ground, wind-whipped trees and everywhere, snow.   Oplev’s palette is a chiaroscuro of brilliant, wintry whites and pale grays set against dark reds, wood paneling and black. 

   All the Swedish actors are good and give their often disagreeable roles real life. Swen-Bertil Taube is especially touching as Henrik Vanger; and Nyqvist gives Blomkvist the right combination of bland intelligence and quiet determination.  But it’s all about Salander, and Rapace is the glacial yet seething embodiment of Larsson’s best creation.

   At two-and-a-half hours, “Tattooâ€� is a long sit.  But I never once looked at my watch, and I’ll bet you won’t either. The final scene may puzzle you, by the way, but it sets up the next film in Larsson’s trilogy of Salander books:  “The Girl Who Played With Fire,â€� already released in Europe.

     “The Girl With the Dragon Tattooâ€� is playing at the Triplex in Great Barrington and will be coming soon to the Millerton Moviehouse.  Although the film is unrated, it contains graphic violence, nudity, sex and rape, along with lots of smoking.