So many thoughts, going in a zillion different directions at once. I’m calling an audible, I’m talking about SIX things, instead of the usual 5-pointed review. Sue me. 

1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a movie of such unstoppable forward momentum, you don’t mind that it comes to its inevitable conclusion with less than a bang, but undoubtedly more than a whimper. A mystery, through and through, it is a clinical display of how to pull an audience in, with enough substantial meat on the bones of the story (thanks to the source material) that you feel completely satisfied as you watch the pieces cascade into a full picture. Two separate storylines, bound together by the thinnest thread, are propelled by two characters with such fierce determination, defining their actions and intentions so clearly that by the time they come colliding together, you can’t help but rub your hands together and just assume the rest of the ride will be even better than all that came before. That assumption would be correct. 

2. Note the camera work, as the movie starts we follow Lisbeth and Mikael storming through offices and hallways, following them from behind, always obscuring their face. Watch how the camera angles open up as the story, and the characters, open up, not necessarily to each other, but to their work. Lisbeth, in her determination to become self sufficient (and all the horrors and trials she must endure to get there), and Mikael driven by his need to vindicate his reputation, as well as simply have a purpose, period. It’s an amazing little effect that I found great, so much so that at the end of the movie, when you see Lisbeth’s face, watching Mikael’s back in the final scene, you realize who’s changed, and who maybe hasn’t. Gorgeously done. 

3. Hard to find a weak link in the cast of characters, but the obvious (and correct) answer for “best” is Rooney Mara. She really put herself out there, and a character that you think you would simply cheer for out of sheer pity and righteousness becomes a character you care about, even without the obvious cues as to “why” you should. Her performance exceeds what’s given to her. 

4. With all the talk of offensiveness, misogyny, and celebrating violence against women, maybe I was prepared for so much worse. Save for the borderline excessive nudity, I thought that the worst scenes were mostly necessary, and served the story and characters well. I did think the romance between Mikael and Lisbeth were pretty shallow and sudden, but I sort of assumed that they were supposed to be. Weren’t they?

5. One of the most fascinating things about this movie, and one that only a filmmaker like Fincher could probably pull off, was the collision of old and new, both in the generational sense (Martin and Gottfried), and in Lisbeth and Mikael’s approaches to their jobs. Lisbeth, a pseudo-hacker/digital investigator, and Mikael, an old-school journalist, both arrived at the same conclusions almost simultaneously through completely different means. It’s a rare instance of a movie with that kind of digital, generational divide not blatantly taking one side over the other in an awkward, completely stilted way (::coughSorkin::). Fincher’s use of digital effects and print no doubt plays a role in his egalitarianism, and I thought it was a nice touch. 

6. David Fincher is that rare kind of filmmaker who can make a movie that is so nerdily precise, so taut with so many angles and emotions, and still make it immensely crowdpleasing. If you look at his filmography, you see the resume of a guy who has always had a crowdpleaser aesthetic, while at times very deliberately venturing outside of that comfort zone to exercise those parts of his filmmaking, those weird muscles that later come into play so wonderfully in his big tent productions. There would be no Social Network without the skeletal character dynamics portrayed in Panic Room, or the sprawling storytelling structure displayed in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; there would be no Fight Club without the spiraling (some might say pointless) puzzling manner of The Game. And there would be no Girl With the Dragon Tattoo without the slow, deliberate suspense in Zodiac or the horror aspects of Se7en. We should all be thankful he became the kind of filmmaker who was given such huge projects, and we should be grateful that he tries to stretch in different directions, because he manages to make the conventional into something special, even when it’s not altogether successful. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is not perfect, but it operates at a level well above just being passably successful, and often stretches into a special place. And while I can’t assure everyone that they’ll love it as much as I did, it is definitely worth your time, and will most definitely grab your attention.