Director: David Fincher. Cast: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård,Robin Wright. 158 min. Rated R. USA/Sweden/UK/Germany. Mystery/Thriller.
The entire success of the American remake of the Swedish blockbuster revolves around one question: Is Rooney Mara as good as the Swede Noomi Rapace, in portraying Lisbeth Salander? The answer is simply, no. Rapace's Lisbeth was much colder, much more ferocious, and had a much more subtle way of displaying those hidden emotions. Comparably, Mara is slightly timid, almost ... Americanized, to serve the tastes of the remake's audience. And Mara tries hard, oh does she try hard, to escape from Rapace's shadow.
The entire success of the American remake of the Swedish blockbuster revolves around one question: Is Rooney Mara as good as the Swede Noomi Rapace, in portraying Lisbeth Salander? The answer is simply, no. Rapace's Lisbeth was much colder, much more ferocious, and had a much more subtle way of displaying those hidden emotions. Comparably, Mara is slightly timid, almost ... Americanized, to serve the tastes of the remake's audience. And Mara tries hard, oh does she try hard, to escape from Rapace's shadow.
PS: Like David Fincher's Se7en, the opening credits sequence here are as good as the entire movie combined.
Mo says: 
Great news that access to Moblog seems not impossible there .I remember that how hard time I had last year in the night of Oscar ceremoney to talk in here with a Nafty Antifilter!...it brought tear of anger to my eyes but finally had nice feeling to bypass such stupid restriction anyway.
ReplyDeleteI should go to find Swedish version which 2 other people strongly recommended me like you . The story was beautiful but I felt in the last 1/3 of the movie Fincher mixed some concepts together and that’s why I got confused. I always say that some filmmakers like Fincher make their audiences highly expected when they showed them already such masterpieces like Seven...I think some scenes that I enjoyed a lot was due to such simillarity (as you said) to Seven.
Thanks.
Dear Maryam,
ReplyDeleteI wish you had seen the Swedish version before the American one. Now, your vision of Lisbeth Salander has been tarnished by the remake. I remember thinking about her for many days after I had the Swedish "Dragon Tattoo".
"Seven" is one of those movies with mind-blowing endings (such as in "The Sixth Sense") which you see only once in a lifetime. I doubt Fincher will ever be able to make a movie as good as "Seven" again.