When I heard that there was going to be a US film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo I was angry. I mean, I wasn’t surprised. At all. I’m not stupid. That’s what we do. We take good things and make them huge and clean and digestible. But I was hoping that just this once something good could be allowed to simply be what it was without the Hollywood machine swooping it up. Just a good Swedish book and a good Swedish movie. Something uniquely theirs. A story that couldn’t have come from us.
Let the Swedes have this. It’s theirs.
And the thing is, the Swedish movie version is already excellent. It doesn’t need an update. There’s nothing to be gained from it being American. It’s a modern, well told adaptation. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen an adaptation where I wholly agreed with all of the cuts and changes they made. Some of them made more sense than the book’s choices. Except it’s in Swedish. God forbid. Are we incapable of relating to a story that takes place outside our borders?
Then I found out David Fincher is directing it.
Well, geeze. OK then. Apparently I’m a pushover because now I can’t wait for the US version. Thank god for men like David Fincher who can subvert the bullshit and make great art.
And all is right with the world again.
(Until Brett Ratner directs the sequels.)
