The Girl Who Played with Fire – Dual Review

Steve Brock: The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second film based on Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, begun with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Though this middle film has a different director (Daniel Alfredson), the film has the some sort of moody Scandinavian feel as the first film. Very much a guilty pleasure, like the Saw series, because we know what to expect. Stockholm architecture. Computer technology. Steamy sex. Tasers.

As the connecting feature, the story suffers a bit, as it sets up the final piece. The film neglects much of the ancillary character development of the novel; in fact, if one has not read the book, one will have little understanding of the parade of characters here. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) also receives short shrift. But per the texts, the pock-marked Nyquist brings neither good looks nor charm needed to play Blomkvist; enter Daniel Craig in the new David Fincher version of Dragon Tattoo.

Jon Peters: You bring up some interesting points. I think the new director stumbles in the first handful of minutes, getting everything set-up for this story, which is far more streamlined, than the multi-layered The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Outside of that, director Daniel Alfredson delivers one of the more erotic thrillers in recent memory, as the story blitzes itself towards a powerhouse ending. Of course, none of this would work without the anchor of this franchise: Noomi Rapace. I’m not sure if my vocabluary is deep enough to come up with the adjectives needed to describe her performance as Lisbeth Salander, a performance so good, it’s going to be legendary.

Steve Brock: The incendiary fire scenes are among the best of the movie. Salander’s backstory from Dr. Holger Palmgren (Per Oscarsson) is nicely rendered even if the story has familiar Darth Vadar underpinnings. Elizabeth’s own hazy flashbacks in the psych hospital bring chills. A chase scene, albeit brief, evokes the French Connection.

Jon Peters: The Girl Who Played with Fire comes at a curious time to America. We’re in the midst of a sex ring around the border of Texas and Mexico, something that seems to be as dangerous and sickening as the drug cartels leaking into our streets, which makes for added value in the film’s plot. Again, that’s what makes Lisbeth Salander such a curious heroine. She’s flawed; she’s been abused, raped, misunderstood, yet comes as a vengeful saint. It’s a quality that serves well into America, as we’re a country who is in love with superheroes, also a key to why her character is so well known and loved.

I think Stieg Larsson knew this, and it aids the contempary feeling to Salander’s arc. Alfredson plays with this, which creates a memorizing finale, something Tarantino would be proud of. In fact, the finale is so good, it alone makes The Girl Who Played with Fire one of the better films this year.

Steve Brock: I found Lisabeth Salander not as strong as in Dragon Tattoo, Jon. At the end of this segment, although she seems to have escaped the clutches of the grave, she lies only moments away from death. However, I did find your comments about her as a contemporary superhero intriguing. She’s ambi-sexual, voraciously so. With her shirt on or off, she resembles a young boy much more than a mature woman. Moreover, as we learn more about her parents, we find that evil is not a force outside of her; it is genetically a part of her. One of her best moments in the film was riding that chopper!

Per the ending, I think I was too influenced by the many layers of the book to appreciate the cursory treatment it got.

Jon Peters: I think her ambi-sexuality is the cause for her universal appeal, as with both films she is the lover to a woman and a man, but I disagree on her strength, or lack thereof in your opinion. Lisbeth is a lot like Daniel Craig’s interpretation of a young James Bond in Quantum of Solace. Like Bond, she has a stone cold determination to rid her pain’s creator. She’s cold and calculating, even smirks as she faces “Zalachenko”, no easy feat for what has happened to her in the past, one would assume based on testimonials from real life victims of sexual abuse.

I also wouldn’t consider her near death appearance to be a sign of weakness either. It’s more of a literal death/rebirth for Lisbeth, even though the film really feels like a middle chapter than a complete beginning/ending story, one gets the sense Lisbeth is cleansed. But I think we both agree on The Girl Who Played with Fire as a damn good pulp thriller. Erotic and entertaining in all the right areas.

Rating:

Jon Peters

I love film. That is all.

More Posts