Book to Movie: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (foreign)

If someone asked me my opinion of the film in passing, I'd tell them, "It was okay," because truly I had higher expectations for it.

The cast, save for Henrik Vanger, was really nothing like I imagined the characters to be in my head, so that took some adjustment right out of the gate. The film was more graphic than an American film but not so vivid as to be hard to watch. It also runs longer than two and a half hours.

The story skipped right into the 'meat' of the Vanger family mystery, skipping over most of the plot exposition of Blomkvist and Lisbeth that made the beginning of the book drag. However, my husband, who hadn't read the book, thought that the lack of exposition made the story difficult to follow. The cuts they made to the rest of the plot made sense, skipping most of Blomkvist's financial story but keeping the Lisbeth sub-plot. Although, I'm not sure it was clear why Lisbeth was a ward of the state or what exactly her issues are.

The changes made to the climax of the Vanger story, though minor, bothered me. Perhaps the script writers drew from information in later books, I don't know, but it really changed the way you viewed the character of Lisbeth, in my opinion. I don't think it added anything to the plot, and it left me feeling uneasy about Lisbeth, a character we are supposed to take an interest in so that we want to follow her story in the next book/movie.

All in all, it was an interesting take on the story. I look forward to seeing the American film to see how it compares. My recommendation is if you've read the books, check it out, if you haven't (you definitely should!), I'd wait for the American version.