Film Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire 29 August 2010

Bless the Broadway in Nottingham; even when a film like The Girl Who Played with Fire has advertising everywhere I still wouldn't want to see a Swedish movie any where else in Nottingham.

For a Sunday 2pm screening, there was a fair number and I think I can safely say that all had avidly read the book and I doubt many are looking forward to the English language remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with Daniel Craig (who is utterly wrong for the role in my mind).

ANYWAY: to the second of the films in the book trilogy.

We've the main actors back - Nyqvist, Rapace - and therefore a degree of continuity from the first film. Its a shame that cinema production values couldn't be provided, but I've grown to love YellowBird productions being an addict of the Wallander dramas (interestingly Nyqvist turned up as a villain in the Wallander episode that turned up on BBC4 on the Saturday night -- it wasn't one we'd seen and it was a cracker [Mastermind was the episode]).

As the middle of a trilogy, the narrative inevitably suffers from a degree of incompletion largely avoided by the first (more self-contained storyline) and the finale (to round things off, at least at that point). But it is a cracking narrative: yes, there are omissions, sidelines and sub-plots that get excluded, but the thrust remains the same. Only one element disappointed both Cloud and I -- and that was failing to include in the dialogue any of Salander's infuriated references to Kalle Bastard Blomkvist or Kalle Bastard Practical Pig Blomkvist. Ah, those made us laugh so much when we read the novel.



The UK trailer only part captures the movie, and distractingly it uses the music used for Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Weird. I almost prefer watching the Swedish trailer.



But the point is that I'm really waiting for the finale to come out in the cinema later this year.

I came home yesterday afternoon and promptly re-read 'The Girl Who Played with Fire'. I'm waiting till I see the finale - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest' - to re-read that volume.