Film: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Year: 2011
Director: David Fincher
Written by: Steve Zallian
Starring: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, Joely Richardson, Yorick van Wageningen, Goran Visnjic, Steven Berkoff, Geraldine James.
Running time: 158 min.
This is out in New Zealand cinemas on January 26th.
It is a tough life being a remake. Moreso if it is a Hollywood remake. There are the endless comparisons to the original. Then there are the differences between the two: if it is too different, people hate it; if it is shot for shot, people also hate it. And if Hollywood remakes a foreign film, then the makers get slammed for encouraging the lazy people who can’t be bothered reading subtitles. Yes, usually remakes don’t fare too well, but there is the occasional exception. David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one such example of that. However, there is an exception to that exception: Fincher has made it very clear that his version isn’t a remake of the 2009 Swedish hit. Instead, it is an adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s wildly popular posthumous novel. A novel which has sold more copies than The Very Hungry Caterpillar. When you put things into perspective, a lot of people would like to adapt this book, but I’m glad that Fincher was the one to do it.
