I had a bit of a grand debate with myself yesterday whether or not to go downstairs and watch The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at Astro Theater. After all, this is one of my all time favorite books ever and I wasn't too keen on witnessing how it would get desecrated Hollywood style. A movie is a medium totally different from a book no matter how you look at it. I mean if I say that the movie tried to be true to the book (it wasn't really) that may not mean a good thing. Like Steig Larsson effectively managed to weave a story that makes you struggle with the first how many chapters in a slow, dragging uphill climb and then suddenly you find yourself being pushed at the edge of the peak and you roll full speed you don't even know what hit you. It's true that pictures can paint a thousand words but there are times when only words can define, paint and create a story that you can't quite capture in (moving) pictures. That's why I love movies and I love books but as two separate media..I have never been a big fan of seeing a beloved book being made into film. And that's why I had a lot of misgivings about watching Dragon Tattoo. But last night I was still recovering from my holiday binge and I was happily being a bum, browsing through the year end special issue of People Magazine and I chanced upon some positive reviews on Rooney Mara's (as Lisbeth Salander) acting and I took that as a sign that I should go downstairs and watch the movie. If anything, it would only mean a $12 and 2h40min worth of regret and I talked myself into believing that I am after the entertainment value and I should not even attempt to make any comparison to the book. So 20 minutes before screening time I managed to drag myself out of the apartment, bought a ticket and consoled my anti film version other self with a large bag of popcorn and pepperoni stick.
First of all, Mr. Larsson, in all three books he wrote before his too untimely demise, never aimed to entertain but he seemed to be more concerned about making sure you are uncomfortably shifting in your seats and feeling disturbed while reading about the series of unfortunate events that befell the hapless, unlikely, atypical heroine that is Lisbeth Salander before finally providing a sense of vindication at the very few last pages of the last book. Which is a little too late for some of us who have already been consumed by all the darkness, injustice, perversion and what nots of the first two books and at least 90% of the last one. And with the way he tried to paint a picture of corruption and evil in a seemingly perfect Swedish system, your now paranoid self would even go as far as thinking maybe Larsson didn't die of a heart attack, maybe there was some foul play there since he was ruffling a few political feathers. That's why I came to love his The Girl..Trilogy, it sucks you like a whirlpool into it's pages, no matter how the first how many chapter drags, it moves you, it disturbs you and in the end it's one of those rare books that makes you want to do a standing ovation and cheer. And I think it was mainly due to how Steig Larsson chose how and when to slowly build characters, plots and background, when to suddenly go for the kill. To capture all these in film would be such a tall, tall order so as expected, the movie version failed in this aspect. To their credit though, the producers seem to respect the fact that the author didn't really aim to entertain so they also tried to tone down on the drama, shock value, cliche or other Hollywood-ish formula and even managed to succeed in creating a dark, somber, disturbing mood.
The casting was perfect. And I am especially referring to Rooney Mara. If anything, she did give justice to the role although at times she's doing it too perfectly that you can feel her all too conscious effort to "be like" Lisbeth as opposed to "being" Lisbeth. I don't know how to explain this one but sometimes it felt like watching a two hours or so character interpretation monologue rather than watching a movie. But she's the perfect Lisbeth, I can't think of anybody else who can pull that one off. Thank God they didn't get Lindsay Lohan or Kristen Stewart. The rest of the cast were good too except that it's Hollywood so it's like one grand musical chair or recycling event so at some point I was half expecting Christopher Plummer to burst into song and sing "I go to the hills when my heart is lonely" or for Robin Wright to scream, "run Forrest run"! or yes for Daniel Craig to reveal that he is actually "Bond. James Bond".
It's hard to reconcile the book in two hours something worth of film so of course it can't entirely remain faithful to the print version, that's forgivable and expected - especially if you promised yourself not to judge the movie by it's book version. I just wished more emphasis was placed on demonstrating Lisbeth's genius methods for hacking computers (the way it was described in the book) because it was really a fun part of the story that I thought Hollywood would have wanted to magnify. And of course you really have to read the book so that you won't assume that the movie was just an excuse to advertise Apple and McDonald products. Unlike in Filipino movies, out of nowhere the leading man would have a headache and a well meaning supporting character will give him a certain brand of acetamenophen and proclaim it to be most effective for headache. Of course everybody in the audience know that the leading man is in real life an endorser for this brand of drug. How and why they resort to that kind of lame advertising psychology never fails to baffle me and annoys me like anything. Anyway, back to the Dragon Tattoo. I didn't like their version of how the Harriet thing was finally resolved but since I didn't provide a spoiler alert at the beginning of this post, that's all I can say about that one. Though I don't think the one or two faithful readers of my blog would mind (referring to mother and a friend I love to harass to read or else). I also thought it was weird watching Michael Blomkvist (Craig) being tortured to the ironically benign, light and breezy tune of Enya's Orinico Flow. I don't think I can listen to that song in the same way again! I don't remember that happening in the book though, maybe I should read it again. Or that part at least. And just in case there are Steig Larsson fans who happen to stumble into this post, go ahead and watch the movie but with no great expectations.
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