The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

David Fincher and Steven Zaillian's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Swedish, run-away bestseller is a competent but unexceptional thriller with plenty of style and characterization. The best aspects of the film are the lead actors: Daniel Craig (far more nuanced here than in his first two outings as James Bond) and Rooney Mara (whose most memorable screen role to date has been her one scene at the top of Fincher's The Social Network). The film, like the book and its earlier Swedish version, exposes the dark and nasty underside of the country many of us assumed was a kind of liberal paradise. Much of the movie is disturbing, but Fincher's detached aesthetic keeps it from ever feeling too graphic or exploitative.

What's most lacking in the film is a sense of geography. Much of it takes place on an island with many houses, and Fincher seems to consider it too much of a hassle to provide a clear lay of the land for the audience so we can understand the relationship of each house to the others.  I don't think this is too much to ask of a director lauded for his meticulous visual dexterity and control.  I couldn't help but think about how this material would have been handled in the 80s by a fine craftsman like John McTiernan, or in the 70s by a great artist like Roman Polanski—I bet in their hands we'd have gotten a more grounded sense of place and a more satisfying experience of uncovering a mystery.