Movie Review: The Girl who played with Fire

Jenness Mitchell • Published 1 Sep 2010 16:01 2 Comments

Continuing on from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second instalment of the film adaptation of the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

When journalist Dag Svensson (Hans Christian Thulin) and his girlfriend Mia Johansson are assassinated after writing an expose on prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden with a gun belonging to Nils Erik Bjurman (Peter Andersson), the police are quick to point the finger at Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) when the murder weapon is shown to have her prints all over it and Bjurman, her social worker, turns up dead too. With the police hotly on the computer hacker's tail, it is left to journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to prove his friend's innocence when wrongly accused of the triple murder.

While The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo revolved around a serial killer with a hatred toward women, The Girl Who Played With Fire is centred on Salander's character and how she came to be the unique spirit readers have come to love within the Millennium novels. We are given an insight into her history and shown the incident which caused her to be put into care which in turn led to her being abused and raped by Bjurman in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Salander's past is linked to the current prostitution and human trafficking ring, with Blomkvist trying to unravel the who and why.

No movie can be as detailed as a book on which it is based, but The Girl Who Played With Fire is a solid attempt in the same vein as Ron Howard's adaptations of Dan Brown's Angels And Demons and The Da Vinci Code as it does not sway too much from the original story.

Aside from the wonderful setting of Sweden, the film's success is largely thanks to the screen charisma of leads Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace as Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander respectively.

Nyqvist is good looking in an unexplainable way with a bulldog-like charm that will make the audience glad he is on the good side, while Rapace continues to win over critics with her softly-spoken yet punk-pierced Salander.

Watching The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo I shuddered when witnessing the depravity of Bjurman, but then cheered when the favour was returned and then some. Within The Girl Who Played With Fire, Rapace seems to have relished the opportunity to play such an awesome character and has really made the role her own. With an American remake in the works, directed by David Fincher and starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the leads, Mara is going to have to pull out all the stops if she wishes to top the performance of Rapace. I have made it no secret that I felt the role should have been give to Carey Mulligan (An Education/Never Let Me Go), but am sure with Fincher and Craig behind the movie it has the workings of being a smash hit.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is Swedish, subtitled, and will not be to everyone's taste. I however, loved it and cannot wait for the November release of the final chapter, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest.

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• 

  Hayliegh
  Unregistered User
  Sep 10, 14:38
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  I really like how you described the film. And I must agree the setting of it is truly spectacular. Well done for writing such a splendid piece. It has encouraged me to go and see the The Girl Who Played With Fire.
  
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• 

  Jenster13
  2 posts
  Sep 16, 00:28
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  Thank you for your kind words, Hayliegh :) Am glad I encouraged you to go see it as my friends have banned me from choosing what movie to see when we go to the cinema as they have never forgiven me for tricking them into watching Battle Royale back in our Uni days :D xx
  
  Recommend?   Yes 0     No 0

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