The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Director: David Fincher
Rated: R for brutal violent content including rape and torture, strong sexuality, graphic nudity, and language
Runtime: 158 minutes

Oscar Watch: Nominated for 5 Oscars at the 84th Academy Awards including Best Actress (Rooney Mara), Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Mixing.

Directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, Se7en, The Social Network), the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sticks close to the spirit and most of the details of Stieg Larsson's Swedish crime drama novel presenting an evocative mood, haunting music and an exceptional ensemble cast that some think surpasses the 2009 original.

Rooney Mara is astonishing as Lisbeth Salander, the pierced, bisexual, tattooed twenty-something hacker who teams up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) to unearth secrets in the family of Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), an industrialist who thinks his grandniece, Harriet, was murdered 40 years ago.
With a series of briskly paced jaw-droppers, Fincher and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth capture the menace and grim despair in the frosty Scandinavian landscape so well that even Lisbeth's microfiche session at a library brims with suspense.

The score, nominated for 2 Oscars features a mesmerizing title sequence, set to Trent Reznor's eerie cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, along with Enya’s ethereal Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) as a background aria of jaunty dread.

...the most compelling version yet of the tale dreamed up by the late Stieg Larsson... the imagery is as crisp and fastidious as it gets.... If you needed another version of Larsson's proven combination of prurience and payoff, here you go. - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune