The Girl who Played with Fire

The second installment of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has hit the big screens. After the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo brought such high hopes for this Swedish trilogy, The Girl who Played with Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden) failed to live up to the high expectations. The amount of fans of the books keeps growing, so this film not only had to contend with the reputation of it’s prequel, but with the reputation of the book. It has been said that all trilogies have to have a weak installment, and it can only be hoped that this is the only weak spot with the release of The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest fast approaching.

 

The stories of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist continue as Salander is accused of triple homicide and Blomkvist tries to prove her innocence while investigating a sex trafficking ring.  

The Girl who Played with Fire’s character development was anaemic and lack-luster. A year has passed since the previous film and no exposition is provided. Relationships between the journalists aren’t explained, which is hard enough to understand without having read the books, but on Lisbeth’s return to Sweden she tries to reconnect with old friends, but again there is no exposition to these friends, and despite their obvious integral roles in the story-line they all seem to have cameos and bit parts, brushed to the side. The police’s investigation of Salander is also incredibly loose and unprofessional, we as an audience can’t feel any connection to them, despite their jobs being vital to both the story, the Swedish society and to understanding Salander’s mysterious background. This is disappointing because the mystery and intrigue surrounding Salander was so well set-up in the first film. Despite the poor character development, it has to be understood. The film runs for over two hours and to accurately explain everything necessary, the film would run for over three hours, which would have lost a lot of audience members, with many not being willing to watch a subtitled feature anyway. This causes problems however, because the final installment is a longer book. Time will only tell if Oplev’s successor, Daniel Alfredson can rescue what started as a magnificent trilogy from the brink of failure.

This story is also missing a characteristic that helped make The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo what it was. The relationship between Blomkvist and Salander. It was always a strange relationship, but due to distance and secrecy, the relationship should have become far more interesting, but it was placed on the back-burner in order to keep the story going. This film felt less like a work of art and more like a story, which was another disappointment. The original complex story had many of the complexities removed, it seemed like plot device after plot device, driving the narrative forward. The original reason for Blomkvist’s investigation, and Salander’s past being brought to the public eye was Millenium’s work on a sex trafficking scandal, which as time passed seemed to be put to the side and slowly slipped from the story all together. 

Despite all of these problems, the film had a beautiful aesthetic. A stark contrast between the opening in the Caribbean to the cold dark streets of Sweden shows how two worlds can collide, the dark and private world of Salander, and the open and world of Blomkvist. The shots of flames engulfing buildings and people representing Salander’s explosive nature. The imagery continues to impress even though the story fails to. 

While this film fails to live up to the reputation that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoocreated, there is still time to recreate the greatness of Larsson’s novels. The final installment is to be released soon, and Hollywood have got their grubby hands on the rights. This however might not be as bad a situation as it sounds. With Daniel Craig set to take the role of Blomkvist, there is a chance that Craig’s charisma will bring out the womanising Blomkvist who is not afraid to take practical matters into his own hands, that Larsson created, and not the Blomkvist that we see on the Swedish big screens.

Written by Edward L. Corrigan 10/10/2010