My wife and I saw The Girl who Played with Fire at Angelica in NYC and we both really enjoyed it, even more than the first movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The Girl who Played with Fire is more straightforward than Dragon Tattoo to translate to film because it has more action and traditional suspense. As with the first film, the filmmakers wisely stick right to the book and avoid adding distracting, superfluous shit, and as a result the movie version works really well. The action scenes are captured in an exciting and spontaneous way – they put action in recent Hollywood movies to shame. At the same time, when conveying the complex story to the viewer, they wisely resist the urge to resort to fancy flashbacks and instead stick to the old ways: well-written, well-delivered dialog! It’s not quite up to the quality standards of the great 70’s classics perhaps, but it’s very refreshing to see filmmakers take the trouble to write information into the dialog, rather than just bashing the viewer over the head with flashbacks or (even worse) narration.

The filmmakers made very good decisions about which story elements to condense or eliminate and how to go about it. (The makers of the Harry Potter movies could have learned A LOT from the editing craftsmanship on display here.) The only mistake was they left the connection between Zala and the murders of the two journalists a bit too murky, and I think they should have included Salander’s visit to the journalists and attempted to flesh out that whole aspect of the story a bit more. I think they felt that going there would have disrupted the dramatic impact of the story; I don’t think it would have. But don’t get me wrong, the story hangs together very well with their approach.

I hear that an English version is in the works now, probably starring Carey Mulligan as Salander. She’s all wrong; she’s way to warm for the role. (As my wife pointed out, “I don’t think Lizbeth Salander has dimples.”) But what I want to say is that these films are so good I think an American or English version is completely unnecessary.

I’m not sure what kind of distribution The Girl who Played with Fire is getting right now, but highly recommend tracking it down and seeing it on the big screen. Ditto for Dragon Tattoo, if you can still find it (it’s still at Sunshine in NYC.)