The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a scathing critique of male violence and misogyny cunningly disguised as a gripping thriller. The world of the film, and by extension Swedish society as a whole, is permeated by the psychological, physical and sexual violence committed against women and it doesn't flinch from portraying some disturbing moments. Nor is it merely the fascist-inclined elites who are the perpetrators. The yobs that hacker Lisbeth encounters at the station are equally quick to go on the attack. In these circumstances it seems that the only option is to to completely erase one's identity (as both Harriet and Lisbeth, via her hacker identity, do) Those who fight back are immediately labelled as in some way psychotic: the thugs call Lisbeth a "crazy bitch" when she gives them a taste of their own medicine (what does that make them?) and she has already been classed as mentally unstable after taking revenge on her abusive father. Yet despite their suffering both Lisbeth and Harriet prove to be survivors, and in a glorious reversal of cliche - almost making up for those thousands of films where heroines stupidly get themselves kidnapped or otherwise put in harm's way - it's Lisbeth who literally rides to the rescue of her fellow investigator Mikael when he inadvertently stumbles into the killer's clutches.
The film also distinctively combines what we might call high and low technology in its investigative framework. Lisbeth and Mikael take their laptops everywhere but for a 40 year old mystery they also have to wade through files of papers and boxes of photographic negatives, leaf through diaries and Bibles and generally be able to analyze all that raw data. The cabin's walls gradually disappear under a mosaic of photos and printouts as the pair tease out links. At various times both Mikael and the elderly Hendrik misinterpet what's in front of them whereas Lisbeth has a photographic memory and immediately knows when someone has been in the cabin. She also has an unerring instinct for the key breakthrough (she solves the code in Harriet's diary and applies the results to unsolved murders) and it's she who realizes that they've been - partly - looking at the wrong culprit.
It's a cracking thriller, a disturbing portrayal of violence, and a film that generates a real sense of anger if you're a female viewer. You don't leave the cinema with any feeling of goodwill towards men.