The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I so enjoyed the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I decided to watch the European version. Instead of Rooney Mara playing Lisbeth Salander, we have Noomi Repace. And instead of Daniel Craig playing Mikael Blomkvist, we have Michael Nyqvist. As the story goes, Blomkvist is a journalist who gets into trouble for investigating a billionaire. Even though he has embarrassed himself nationally, a Swedish industrialist still reaches out to him to investigate an unsolved murder case from 40 years back. Salander eventually joins up with Blomkvist and they soon realize that they’re on the trail of a serial killer.
Having watched the US version, there weren’t exactly many surprises. Many of the shots look almost the same. There are some divergences between the two movies such as a key piece of information being passed along via the daughter of Blomkvist in the US version, while by Salander in the European version. There are also scenes in the US version that don’t show up until the second European movie. I’ll have to read the book and see which movie is more accurate – of course, by the time I read the book, I’ll probably totally forget the finer details.
What did I think? I really do believe that the US version is the better movie. The US version gives us more reason to empathize with Salander. It feels like she is an individual who has dealt with very difficult situations that would cause any other individual to reject the world and yet she still isn’t emotionally dead. In the European version, she not only has a very difficult pass, but also appears to be emotionally isolated. To a large extend, I believe this is driven by the fact that certain scenes in the US version eventually show up in the European’s version of The Girl Who Played with Fire. Shifting those moments in the US version makes us connect with Salander in a faster way.
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