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Carlota Sproul
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a 2011 mystery thriller film based on the 2005 novel by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It was directed by David Fincher with a screenplay by Steven Zaillian. Starring Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, it tells the story of Blomkvist's investigation to find out what happened to a girl from a wealthy family who disappeared 40 years ago. He recruits the help of Salander, a computer hacker.
Sony Pictures Entertainment began development on the film in 2009, a co-production of the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany. It took the company a few months to obtain the rights to the novel, while also recruiting Zaillian and Fincher. The casting process for the lead roles was exhaustive and intense; Craig faced scheduling conflicts, and a number of actresses were sought for the role of Lisbeth Salander. The script took over six months to write, which included three months of analyzing the novel.
The film premiered at Odeon Leicester Square in London on December 12, 2011. A critical and commercial success, the film grossed $232.6 million on a $90 million budget and received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for Craig and Mara's performances as well as Fincher's direction, the score, and the film's tone and visuals. The film was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2011 and was a candidate for numerous awards, winning, among others, the Academy Award for Best Film Editing,[3] while Mara's performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.[4]
In Stockholm, journalist Mikael Blomkvist is recovering from the legal and professional fallout of a libel suit brought against him by businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrm. The wealthy Henrik Vanger offers Blomkvist evidence against Wennerstrm in exchange for an unusual task: investigate the 40-year-old disappearance and presumed murder of Henrik's grandniece, 16-year-old Harriet.
Every year, Vanger receives a framed pressed flower, the type she always gave him on his birthday. He believes her killer is taunting him. Blomkvist moves into a cottage on the Vanger family estate on Hedestad Island and starts his investigation.
Lisbeth Salander is an asocial investigator and hacker who is antagonized by her state-appointed guardian, Nils Bjurman. Bjurman controls Salander's finances and extorts sexual favors by threatening to have her institutionalized. In one meeting, Bjurman chains Salander to his bed and brutally rapes her, unaware his action is recorded. At their next meeting, Salander tasers Bjurman, binds him, rapes him with a steel dildo, and tattoos "I'm a rapist pig" across his chest. Using the recording she made, she blackmails him into giving her financial independence and ceasing contact with her.
Blomkvist explores the island and interviews Vanger's relatives, most of whom were Nazis and Nazi sympathizers during World War II. He uncovers a list of names and numbers that are Bible verse references and recruits Salander as his research assistant. She discovers a connection between the list and young women brutally murdered from 1947 to 1967, indicating a serial killer. Many of the victims have Jewish names, making her theorize that the murders could have been motivated by antisemitism. One morning, Blomkvist finds the mutilated corpse of his cat on the doorstep. Another night, a bullet grazes his forehead; after Salander tends to his wounds, they have sex. The pair learn that Harriet's late father, Gottfried, and later Martin, her brother, committed the murders.
While looking for more proof, Blomkvist gets caught by Martin, gassed unconscious, and restrained in a specially prepared basement. Martin brags about killing and raping women for decades, like his father, but admits to not knowing what happened to Harriet. As Martin prepares to kill Blomkvist, Salander arrives and wounds Martin, forcing him to flee. Pursued by Salander on her motorcycle, Martin runs his car off the road and hits a propane tank, which blows up the car and kills him. As she nurses Blomkvist back to health, Salander reveals that she was institutionalized after attempting to burn her father alive as a child.
They deduce that Harriet is alive and in hiding; traveling to London, they find her. Harriet reveals that Gottfried sexually abused her when she was 14 for an entire year before she was able to defend herself, killing him in the process by drowning him. After witnessing the murder, Martin continued to sexually abuse Harriet after Gottfried's death. Her cousin, Anita, smuggled her off the island and let Harriet assume her identity in London, though Anita and her husband were later killed in a car accident. Finally free of her brother, Harriet returns to Sweden and tearfully reunites with Henrik.
Henrik gives Blomkvist the promised information against Wennerstrm, but it proves to be outdated, and any statutes of limitations have run out. Salander reveals that she has hacked Wennerstrm's accounts and discovered he is laundering money for various criminal syndicates. She gives Blomkvist evidence of Wennerstrm's crimes, which Blomkvist publishes in a scathing editorial, ruining Wennerstrm and bringing Blomkvist to national prominence. Salander, in disguise, travels to Switzerland and removes two billion euros from Wennerstrm's secret accounts. Wennerstrm is later murdered in an apparent gangland shooting.
The writing process consumed approximately six months, including three months creating notes and analyzing the novel.[10] Zaillian noted that, as time progressed, the writing accelerated. "As soon as you start making decisions," he explained, "you start cutting off all of the other possibilities of things that could happen. So with every decision that you make you are removing a whole bunch of other possibilities of where that story can go or what that character can do."[10] Given the book's sizable length, Zaillian deleted elements to match Fincher's desired running time.[10] Even so, Zaillan took significant departures from the book.[13] To Zaillian, there was always a "low-grade" anxiety, "but I was never doing anything specifically to please or displease," he continued. "I was simply trying to tell the story the best way I could, and push that out of my mind. I didn't change anything just for the sake of changing it. There's a lot right about the book, but that part, I thought we could do it a different way, and it could be a nice surprise for the people that have read it."[13]
Zaillian discussed many of the themes in Larsson's Millennium series with Fincher, taking the pair deeper into the novel's darker subjects, such as the psychological dissimilarities between rapists and murderers.[13] Fincher was familiar with the concept, from projects such as Seven (1995) and Zodiac (2007). Zaillian commented, "A rapist, or at least our rapist, is about exercising his power over somebody. A serial killer is about destruction; they get off on destroying something. It's not about having power over something, it's about eliminating it. What thrills them is slightly different."[13] The duo wanted to expose the novels' pivotal themes, particularly misogyny. "We were committed to the tack that this is a movie about violence against women about specific kinds of degradation, and you can't shy away from that. But at the same time you have to walk a razor thin line so that the audience can viscerally feel the need for revenge but also see the power of the ideas being expressed."[5] Instead of the typical three-act structure, they reluctantly chose a five-act structure, which Fincher pointed out is "very similar to a lot of TV cop dramas."[14]
Craig competed with George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and Brad Pitt as candidates for the role of Blomkvist.[15][9] Initial concerns over schedule conflicts with the production of Cowboys & Aliens (2011) and Skyfall (2012) prompted Craig to postpone the casting process.[9][16] Given the uncertainty surrounding Skyfall following Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's bankruptcy, Sony Pictures Entertainment and DreamWorks worked out a schedule and Craig agreed to take the part.[16] The British actor was required to gain weight and adopted a neutral accent to befit Stockholm's worldly cultural fabric. Having read the book amid its "initial craze", Craig commented, "It's one of those books you just don't put down" [...] There's just this immediate feeling that bad things are going to happen and I think that's part of why they've been so readable for people."[5]
Casting of Salander was complicated by the raft of prominent candidates such as Emily Browning, Eva Green, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley, Jennifer Lawrence, Carey Mulligan, Elliot Page, Natalie Portman, La Seydoux, Vanessa Hudgens, Sophie Lowe, Sarah Snook, Kristen Stewart, Olivia Thirlby, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Watson, Evan Rachel Wood and Yolandi Visser; Lowe, Mara, Seydoux, and Snook were the final four candidates.[17][18][19][20] Despite the hype, some eventually withdrew from consideration due to the time commitment and low pay.[21] Mara had worked with Fincher in his 2010 film The Social Network.[5][9] Fincher, while fond of the actress' youthful appearance,[22] found it difficult at first to mold her to match Salander's antisocial demeanor, which was a vast contrast from her earlier role as the personable Erica.[9] Mara went through multiple changes in her appearance to become Salander. Her hair was dyed black and cut into various jagged points, giving the appearance that she cut it herself.[23][24] In addition to her transgressive appearance, which was described as a "mash-up of brazen Seventies punk and spooky Eighties goth with a dash of S&M temptress" by Lynn Hirschberg of W,[23] Mara participated in a formal screening and was filmed by Fincher on a subway in Los Angeles in an effort to persuade the executives of Sony Pictures that she was a credible choice.[9]
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