Prick Up Your Ears for this Espionage Puzzler

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

*** out of ****

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson

Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch

Running time: 127 minutes

Author’s note: From this point forward, I will be making my reviews stronger and more slender. An average review from years past hovered around the 700-word mark, but I will make my best attempt to cap the length of each column at 500 words. Think of this weight loss as a New Year’s Resolution of sorts.

The Motion Picture Academy rarely acknowledges performances of taciturn restraint, which makes it surprising that after three decades of compelling turns in roles as varied as Sid Vicious, Lee Harvey Oswald and Ludwig van Beethoven, Gary Oldman has finally been recognized with an Oscar nomination for his turn of hushed expertise in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

As retired intelligence analyst George Smiley – who appeared in a handful of John le Carré page-turners, including the 1974 novel this film is based on – Oldman is slyly perceptive, peering out from behind leopard-brown horn-rimmed glasses.

That novel’s title is derived from a children’s nursery rhyme, but for the story’s sake, are the code names for the MI6 officers that Smiley is investigating. There’s a Russian spy lurking somewhere at the upper echelon of that spy organization (dubbed "The Circus"), and this rotten apple must be disposed of. This unsavoury fruit can take the form of either chief Percy (Toby Jones), his deputy Bill (Colin Firth), or his close allies Roy (Ciarán Hinds) and Toby (David Dencik).

The "Circus" nickname is apt here, since Smiley performs acrobatics (of the intellectual variety) to avoid speculation on his part as he slices through confidential documents and interrogates several rogue agents to uncover the mole. One of those agents is a bushy-haired operative played by a stellar Tom Hardy.

Like Smiley, the film is classy, vastly intelligent and unemotional. It’s also dressed in dreary greys, as director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) cunningly harkens back to the dismal Cold War-era spy flicks of the 1960s. Alberto Inglesias’s moody, deliberate score, also up for an Academy Award, terrifically accompanies the glimpses at an ashy, dour Great Britain.

Le Carré’s novels are cunning and complicated works of crime drama, and thus keeping up with all of the characters, the code names, the double-crossing, the convoluted plot strands and the various connections between the characters is a challenge. Those unfamiliar with the original novel are bound to be dumbfounded by the onslaught of information.

Co-writers Bridget O’Connor (who died before the film was finished) and Peter Straughan cram the twisty plot into a tight two hours with mixed results. While the pacing is swift, the psychology behind many of the supporting characters being investigated is too slight. These agents have wonderful supporting players in their neatly tailored clothes, but could have used more screen time.

But Gary Oldman’s commanding presence could make any film worth watching, and his work as George Smiley is a mesmerizing master-class of acting. He leads a terrific ensemble who keep a twisty tale absorbing even as the confounding elements of the mystery threaten to overwhelm the film altogether.

Snapshots of Sundance

Last weekend, I was granted the formidable opportunity of venturing out to Park City, UT, a snowy chalet town that has been home to the Sundance Film Festival since the mid-1980s.

Of the 25 premiering films with distribution deals already sealed, I managed to check out two of them: the Australian mystery Wish You Were Here, and the American drama Middle of Nowhere.

Wish You Were Here (**1/2), from director Kieran Darcy-Smith, was an opening night selection, although I caught it at the packed 1,480-seat Eccles Theatre at 9 a.m. the next morning. Although the applause that followed the screening was polite, I was hesitant to join.

The film is an oddly paced although well-acted drama about two Australian couples who travel to a Cambodian coastal paradise, full of crystalline blue waters, bustling marketplaces and a steady supply of illegal substances. After one heady night at a rave, the male from the younger couple, Jeremy (Antony Starr), abruptly disappears.

Upon returning to their homes in Australia, the lives of Jeremy’s three travel companions unravel. His girlfriend, a petite firecracker named Steph (Teresa Palmer), is understandably worried, while married couple Dave (Joel Edgerton) and Alice (Felicity Price, the director’s true-life wife) can only speculate to their friend’s whereabouts and are becoming increasingly paranoid.

The performers are riveting, especially the bracing Price – who also served as the film’s co-writer – as the mother and schoolteacher who has her personal limits tested when she discovers a harsh reality from that fateful night.

However, Wish You Were Here is marred by its offbeat pacing and unconvincing plot developments. The only hints we’re given to Jeremy’s whereabouts are flickered on the screen in fleeting flashback sequences. These come up a few times early on and then recede as the story progresses. Without much exposition coming to the forefront, much of the drama stems from the sustained moping of the three central characters.

One of the film’s major plot developments (that I will not spoil), which creates a schism between Dave and Alice, isn’t convincing. Why this certain incident occurs is not explained well enough when it is introduced and the motive behind the event is seldom illuminated further as the story progresses. Overall, it’s a mixed bag which I doubt will garner similar acclaim to Animal Kingdom, the fine crime thriller starring Edgerton and Darcy-Smith that won raves at Sundance in 2010.

The second film I saw was the strongly acted, deeply moving drama Middle of Nowhere (***), from writer/director Ava DuVernay. DuVernay just picked up honours for directing the film at the end-of-festival awards – the same award that Sean Durkin received for Martha Marcy May Marlene, my favourite film of 2011.

Middle of Nowhere follows Ruby (the mesmerizing Emaytazy Corinealdi), a young nurse who drops out of medical school after her husband, Derek (Omari Hardwick) is incarcerated in a California prison – the crime he is tried for is never explained.

Derek is locked up for four years, but Ruby is the imprisoned soul whose journey propels the film. Beyond making the trip out to prison on visiting day, her week is mostly filled with looking after her sister’s young boy and sharing glances with a charming bus driver (David Oyelowo) who she slowly falls for.

Terrific, nuanced performances ground the film in a spare realism that works to highlights the universality of Ruby’s experience as a woman-in-waiting. After the screening, DuVernay spoke with the audience about trying to encapsulate the feelings that many women she knows have encountered as their loved ones await release from prison. Middle of Nowhere plays testament to that female vitality in affecting and insightful ways.

Moreover, the film is significant for allowing an audience to take an honest glimpse into the lives of African-Americans, who comprise nearly the entire cast. Film-fest favourites Precious and Pariah have paved way for a greater diversity of black voices in independent cinema, and DuVernay’s film only strengthens the trend further.

Top Tens #7: My Top 10 Films of 2011

I could sum up my overall moviegoing experience last year in three words. The first two are Jessica Chastain and the last one is mediocre.

As of today, I have seen 90 2011 releases. While few were downright abysmal (only five of the films I’ve seen received *1/2 or less), only THREE films that I saw last year warranted a perfect four-star rating.

Note that I haven’t seen the following 2011 releases and thus they are not on my list: Carnage, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Interrupters, Into the Abyss, Like Crazy, The Myth of the American Sleepover, Pariah, Pina, Rampart, A Separation, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, We Bought a Zoo, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Regardless, there were several stellar films and performances from 2011 worth acknowledging. My top 10 films of the year are below (in descending order).

Honourable Mentions: the dazzling animated adventures Rango and The Adventures of Tintin, the powerful AIDS documentary We Were Here, the bloody samurai epic 13 Assassins and the terrificly-acted adaptation of The Help.

10. Take Shelter

(director: Jeff Nichols)

Writer/director Jeff Nichols reaches into the anxieties of Middle America with piercing results in this superbly acted drama. A construction worker named Curtis (Michael Shannon) has vivid, frightening hallucinations about the end of the world. As delusions of impending destructions rattle at his psyche, his stoic wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), worries that these visions may end up ripping their family apart. Shannon and Chastain are both masterful, the former giving the hard-working everyman type nuances of such unhinged ferocity and deep vulnerability that it’s to no surprise he’s already picked up several accolades this season.

9. Page One: Inside the New York Times

(director: Andrew Rossi)

Relevant and insightful, this terrific documentary chronicles the ever-changing structure of media and journalism through the lens of the essential American newspaper, The New York Times. Capturing the anxieties Times writers and editors must go through as the publication adapts to new changes (Wikileaks, Twitter), Rossi’s film shows the struggle that both old-school and new-age journalists face. David Carr, the gravel-voiced ex-junkie who became the Times’ media editor, is one of the many fascinating reporters at the doc’s centre. He is worried about the state of journalism, but is faintly optimistic as well. So is the film, which should be mandatory viewing for anyone who still picks up a newspaper.

8. Midnight in Paris

(director: Woody Allen)

Arguably the best film Woody Allen has made in my lifetime, and his most sumptuously romantic outing since The Purple Rose of Cairo, this comedy (and time-travelogue, if you will) about a wistful American screenwriter (Owen Wilson) who is transported to a new side of Paris at the stroke of midnight is simply delightful. Wilson is a charming Woody Allen surrogate, and a large pool of supporting performers popping in as legendary figures from the City of Love circa 1920 sell the concept with conviction. With an easygoing touch and an intriguing story that explores elements of fallacy and reality, Allen’s film is like an excellent French meal: very light and very rich at the same time.

7. Moneyball

(director: Bennett Miller)

Deconstructing America’s pasttime into a cold, cynical and calculating game, Moneyball is an unconventional but excellent sports film. Based off Michael Lewis’s compelling business book of the same name, the film follows Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane (an exceptional, seasoned Brad Pitt) as he tries to rebuild a dirt-poor franchise whose top players have been pilferated into the league’s richest teams. Moneyball’s sentimental hook is that Beane used to be a ball player who never reached the heights of his burgeoning potential, and his redemption comes from organizing a team of players who are anything like he was. Miller’s directorial approach, alongside Stephen Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin’s sharp script, is intelligent and deeply compassionate, capturing the humanity of the ball game in unexpected ways.

6. Certified Copy

(director: Abbas Kiarostami)

Taking place over one gourgeous afternoon in Tuscany spent between a revered English writer (William Shimell, in his screen debut) and an unnamed, lovely French antiques dealer (a ravishing Juliette Binoche), Certified Copy is the first film from auteur Abbas Kiarostami to be shot outside of his native Iran. Throughout the day, the man and woman put on a façade as husband and wife. As the sun sets and these souls merge closer together, we get the feeling that they may have once been husband and wife. Are they strangers or are they reliving a faded past? Kiarostami’s often enigmatic but endlessly fascinating film lets the audience interpret for themselves.

5. Contagion

(director: Steven Soderbergh)

Following the rapid outbreak of an unknown virus as it permeates throughout the globe, spawning an international pandemonium for prescriptions, Soderbergh’s star-studded thriller could have easily slipped into B-movie territory. Instead, with a taut script from Scott Z. Burns and a foolproof ensemble featuring Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Lawrence Fishburne and Jude Law, the film is primarily effective due to its hyper-realism. Briskly placed without having to compromise its characters, who move throughout several intersecting plotlines, Soderbergh’s Contagion is a gripping and involving thriller that feels eerily prescient.

4. Incendies

(director: Denis Villeneuve)

Based off an acclaimed play by Wajdi Mouawad, this searing French-Canadian drama was robbed of a Foreign Language Film Oscar last year. When Montreal twins Jeanne and Simon receive the will of their late Arab-Canadian mother, they are asked to deliver two envelopes – one addressed to their father presumed to be dead and the other to a brother that they never knew existed. Gravitating between the present as Jeanne departs to Fuad to track down her family history and the horrific past that their mother, Nawal (played as a younger woman by an astonishing Lubna Azabal) encounters, Incendies is a devastating and uncompromising journey into the horrors of political strife and civil war. It is also a remarkable move forward for experimental Quebec director Denis Villeneuve.

3. Hugo

(director: Martin Scorsese)

Martin Scorsese leaves the gritty mean streets for the romantic city lights of Paris with Hugo, a visually wondrous and deeply sentimental family film that also works as a soaring love letter to the early days of cinema. Adapted from Brian Selznick’s bestseller, we follow the orphaned Hugo Cabret (a luminous Asa Butterfield) and his adventures around the Paris train station where he mans the clocks. The young boy wishes to find a heart-shaped key needed to unlock an automaton, and gets some unlikely help from a grouchy toy store owner (Ben Kingsley) who has a secret past of his own. With dazzling set design and a dreamy original score, Hugo also explores the connections people can make through art, a favourite theme of Scorsese's. It is a tender and visually stunning movie that, it turns out, is all about loving the movies.

2. The Tree of Life

(director: Terrence Malick)

The arrival of a Terrence Malick film is a cultural event for any serious film buff, and his latest film, the glorious, evocative The Tree of Life, may be his crowning achievement. Intensely ambitious and expressionistic, it follows the boyhood years of Jack O’Brien (Hunter McCracken, a revelation), who grows up in the midlands of Texas during the 1950s. His father (Brad Pitt, never better) is a strict disciplinarian who nurtures his children with pride and punishment, while his mother (Jessica Chastain) is simple and saintlike, trying to raise her boys through prayer and plenitude. Intimate in its approach to character while exhilaratingly grand in its depiction of everything else – including a 20-minute sequence of the world’s creation – Malick’s film is an audacious symphony of sound and image. Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography captures Jack’s fluid, fleeting memories of youth, as he grapples with questions of reason, spirituality and his place in the world. It is a daunting and audacious work of art due to its cerebral direction, but is one that beckons to be revisited again and again.

1. Martha Marcy May Marlene

(director: Sean Durkin)

Haunting and unpredictable, Sean Durkin’s film is one of the most accomplished directorial debuts in years. His film follows Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), a young lady who flees from a dangerous cult commune in upstate New York to stay with her sister (Sarah Paulson) at a Connecticut cottage. The film gravitates between Martha’s tormented memories from the cult and of its leader (John Hawkes, a menacing treasure), and the present day. Olsen is astonishing as a woman fearful and vulnerable to the dangers that she has escaped but feeling as if they are looming not so far away. Durkin, with firm control over every frame, builds suspense by aligning us with Martha’s restlessness, and the writer/director seamlessly wanders between scenes in the present and mementos from the past. It’s a frightening, mesmerizing glimpse into a woman on the verge, and the very best film of 2011.

A Dirty Shame

Shame

** out of ****

Directed by: Steve McQueen

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, Nicole Beharie and James Badge Dale

Running time: 101 minutes

Michael Fassbender is making quite the career out of portraying tortured, brooding men. In 2011 alone, he appeared on the big screen as a tortured, brooding Rochester in Jane Eyre and a tortured, brooding Magneto in X-Men: First Class.

But if he will be remembered for any role this year, it will likely be for playing a tortured, brooding sex addict in Shame, a drama that reunites him with British artist and director Steve McQueen (both worked on the brutal, brilliant Hunger, where Fassbender played Irish Republican Bobby Sands).

However, while an actor of uncompromising physical intensity, Fassbender can only bring so much to a character study that is curiously lacking in vivid character details.

He plays Brandon Sullivan, a successful black suit in downtown Manhattan who also happens to be a fiercely committed sex addict. He doesn’t watch Internet pornography as much as study it. He can beckon any 7th Ave. prostitute to come to his place without a hitch.

Neatly stacked displays of books and records at his white-washed apartment are in view, while boxes upon boxes of smutty magazines are stacked to the ceiling in his closets. It’s a clean apartment that houses a dirty mind. Brandon makes a conscientious effort to close the blinds often, so as to keep his private depravities a secret.

Think of him as a more damaged and less boastful version of Patrick Bateman from Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, but with a throbbing penchant for sex instead of sadistic murder.

Silent, inquisitive and with one penetrating stare, Brandon can tantalize any women he likes into an evening of sustained sexual stimulation. His boss, David (James Badge Dale) tries to pick up women with corny one-liners and cheeky compliments, and fails miserably in his pursuit for sex. All Brandon needs to do is stare.

However, when Brandon’s sister, a struggling alcoholic musician conveniently named Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shows up to crash at his apartment, she cramps his style. Not only must he refrain from stimulation, but when David manages to hook up with Sissy, Brandon does not take it lightly. Tortured broodiness follows.

Shame could have achieved something haunting and resonant had it given the audience the chance to align with the protagonist’s voyeuristic point-of-view. However, McQueen, a big proponent of prolonged tracking shots, often frames his subjects from a distance.

Meanwhile, there’s a gaping hole in the film’s centre. McQueen and co-writer Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady) never get to the root of Brandon and Sissy’s damaged relationship. Without acknowledging the rocky past that is significant to understanding both characters, it is hard for either performer to make much of an impact. We are left with mere hints that their pasts may have included sexual abuse or incest, but these notions are thin and opaque.

As a result, Mulligan often overdoes certain moments to make up for a character that isn’t there on the page. Meanwhile, Fassbender brings eruptions of abandon and neediness to a character that is underdeveloped. He’s often riveting, but with a firmer script, could have been electrifying.

McQueen also stretches out certain scenes beyond their breaking point. At points, his long-take approach works wonderfully, able to capture raw conversation and fornication in an uninterrupted form. At others, he lets the camera roll for too long. Sissy’s somber stage performance at a classy lounge, where she sings a mulled-down version of "New York, New York," becomes overwrought once pushed beyond the fourth stanza.

There’s a compelling film somewhere in Shame, given the intriguing subject matter and Fassbender’s icy intensity. But while it may show a lot of skin, McQueen’s film never gets under ours.

Black-and-White and Read All Over

The Artist

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius

Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller and James Cromwell

Running time: 100 minutes

The adage goes, “Silence is golden." Considering the contagious awards-season buzz surrounding The Artist – a darling tribute to the silent era of cinema that is also silent – that saying may ring true come Oscar night.

But take away the illustrious black-and-white sheen, the mugging and mimicry by the lead actors, and the nerve to make a film in 2011 that barely contains an utterance of dialogue, and The Artist is a routine showbiz melodrama that borrows heavily from Singin’ in the Rain and All About Eve.

The film follows George Valentin, a debonair matinee idol in late 1920s Hollywoodland (played by French comedy actor Jean Dujardin). Outside the premiere of his latest swashbuckler, young actress Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) finds herself in Valentin’s limelight when she is pushed into him by a massive throng of fans. The two share a nice moment together, as well as a cheeky kiss that lands Miller’s picture on the front page of Variety.

Plucked from obscurity by the mass publicity, Miller starts getting small roles in grand-scale productions and eventually becomes the toast of the town. She eventually stars opposite Valentin in a light truffle for Kinograph Studios, headed by the business-savvy Al Zimmer (a delightful John Goodman).

Both Miller and Valentin have an obvious chemistry together, but also crave to be recognized as individual successes. This resorts to trouble for our latter screen star when Zimmer demands that the studio start adopting a new format for movies – “talkies” – explaining that “the public wants fresh meat and the public is never wrong.” (Side note: Zimmer would have been wrong in 2011 – the seven highest-grossing films last year were sequels.)

The Artist has ridden a wave of buzz since it premiered at Cannes last May to a rousing ovation, with Dujardin later winning the festival's honour for best Actor. But this noise had more to do with the film's experimentation. Put the audio back in, and The Artist is a second-rate backstage drama with thin characters and obvious symbolism.

Hazanavicius does have fun working around the limitations of the medium, though. In the film’s most arresting scene, the protagonist walks around his dressing room in a shambles, unable to hear himself speak or scream, while other sound effects are added to the atmosphere accordingly, such as a glass landing on a table or a dog barking.

Dujardin is a mighty physical performer in his native France, and is a true find for North American audiences here. With a permanent smile plastered on his face and the dashing matinee idols looks that silent stars like Douglas Fairbanks flaunted to their adoring fans, he is an effective and affecting mimic of a 1920s movie star.

With the majority of the picture being told through facial expression and body language – there are some intertitles, though – Dujardin encompasses a marvellous range as his character's career and personal life gradually implode. An actor of his capability deserved a more refreshing character, though. The relationship between Valentin and his wife, for instance, is hardly explored.

Bejo, Hazanavicius’s real-life wife, is also a pocketful of charm as the burgeoning young actress, while Uggie, a Jack Russell nearly as complex as the one from the 2011 drama Beginners, is a scene-stealer as Valentin’s four-legged friend.

Without a dialogue track, the orchestrations carry much of the film’s dramatic weight. Ludovic Bource provides the original score and it is a frequently gourgeous tribute.

Moving between swanky 1920s jazz to sombre strings in moments of depression (both historically and for the protagonist), and punctuated with twinkly musical cues in-between, Bource’s compositions are sly and affectionate homages.

These technical triumphs aside, the film sometimes takes its experimental gimmick for granted. While spoken dialogue is not an option for the characters, Hazanavicius inserts imagery and symbolism that is too familiar to ensure that the audience can grasp the cues of a changing story. The results are plodding and predictable.

Subtlety is not the film’s strong point. A down-on-his-luck Valentin walks home in the rain as members of the public walk over a poster of his film. Later on, after falling victim to the drink, a drearily dressed Valentin looks at a reflection of himself through a store window, his reflection aligning with a mannequinned tuxedo from inside the store like the one that he wears in the opening scene.

The best silent films, from filmmakers like Charlie Chaplin, F.W. Murnau and Carl Dreyer, were thematically simple and visually striking. But The Artist, for all of its charm and “artistic” ambition, becomes simplistic in its storytelling as it progresses. Hazanavicius’s film handles the tribute to silent black-and-white Hollywood with an original style, but without much originality elsewhere.

Have a Very Swede New Year!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

*** out of ****

Directed by: David Fincher

Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Stellan Skarsgard, Christopher Plummer and Robin Wright

Running time: 158 minutes

The old-school/new-age pairing of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander, from Stieg Larsson’s mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has gripped millions of readers around the world.

But considering that a recently made Swedish adaptation of Larsson’s "Millennium trilogy" – Tattoo is the first in the series – already succeeded in capturing the dark, brooding zenith of the late author’s work, the newest American take on his bestseller seems a tad late to the party.

That’s not to discredit the small triumphs that this more recent version has, especially since it comes from David Fincher, one of the finest American directors working today and an expert on crafting intricate dramas surrounding a criminal investigation (Se7en, Zodiac).

Regardless, it’s tough to forget the indelible stamp on the two main characters left by actors Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace, and the taut pacing and chilly atmosphere that were provided by director Niels Arden Oplev.

If you’re not one of the 30 million who have picked up Larsson’s sprawling mystery, here’s a brief synopsis: Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig, with an absent-minded Swedish accent) is a successful, old-fashioned, glasses-around-the-neck journalist who finds himself out of a job after libeling a Swedish industrialist. Defamed for his actions, he hastily agrees to work for another industry magnum, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), in the meantime.

Forty years ago, Henrik’s niece, Harriet, mysteriously vanished off the island of Hedestad, which houses the sprawling family estate and which never met a blizzard it didn’t embrace. Henrik is convinced that she was murdered, and that her killer has continued to send him framed pictures of flowers for his birthday – the same present that Harriet presented to him each year when she was alive.

Convinced that this perpetrator is still out there and eager for a fresh perspective, Henrik wants Blomkvist to offer his journalistic eye to the cold case and crack the mystery.

The disgraced journalist gets a partner to help with the mystery: hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). Her first onscreen appearance sums up the sardonic edge that has given the character a rampant following. She steps off her motorcycle, with a jet black phoenix-like mohawk and a coarse, dark wardrobe. She proceeds to sit at the far end of a boardroom table, jilted and uneasy, looking at her bosses with wavering eye contact, discussing details that only a woman of her curiosity and daring could uncover.

Like the skittish but brilliant Mark Zuckerberg, the subject of Fincher’s The Social Network, Salander is a recluse who obtains supremacy with her technical knowledge. She craftily obtains private documents by hacking her way through hard drives. Her investigatory skills contradict Blomkvist’s traditional techniques, but the two end up working well together.

With a pasty, unblemished face, Mara does not embody the ferocity and raw sexuality that Noomi Rapace brought to the role in the 2009 film. Still, Mara is hypnotic, a fiery screen presence who manages to show glimmers of vulnerability underneath a rough facade.

Salander is a terrific anti-hero, a victim of sexual violence who swallows her fear and resolves to exact her revenge on predatory pigs that hurt women, including one that becomes a suspect in the Vanger cold case. Note that the film, like the novel, contains scenes of graphic violence and rape.

Salander’s black subconscious is first revealed in an intoxicating opening titles sequence. In the inky, lacquer-drenched opening, Lisbeth emerges like a flower in bloom to the piercing howls of Karen O covering Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” It’s animated and edited like the throbbing nightmare of a James Bond opening credit sequence.

Fincher’s vision of Larsson’s bestseller has some technical triumphs. Among his crew are musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and their score’s fuzzy Kid A-esque poundings are reminiscent of the ominous undertones they brought to The Social Network (both won an Oscar for the film, and Fincher pays tribute to Reznor’s band, Nine Inch Nails, in a clever easter egg).

Cinematographer (and Fincher collaborator) Jeff Cronenweth is also back with his signature low lighting and olive tints, brightened for recreations of the crimes shown in flashback.

The Swedish counterpart has a couple of strengths in relation to this newest adaptation. The romance spawned between Salander and Blomkvist had greater resonance in that film, since Oplev’s version stressed character development over the mystery.

Both characters cling to each other because they are lost and vulnerable. However, considering the queasy, sadistic act of sexual violence perpetrated on Salander early on in the film, the rote acts of sexuality between the two journalists here feel unconvincing.

It’s not as engaging or suspenseful as the Swedish film, but Fincher’s adaptation does have the moments of raw, unsettling violence that punctuated the novel. Meanwhile, Mara is unnerving and often mesmerizing, even if she is a paler version of what we’ve seen before (i.e., Noomi Rapace). The same could be said about the adaptation, which could have been more gripping had it not been committed to film so recently and so superbly.