There is a fine balance to achieve between a straight thriller where action is the lead and characters secondary, and a serious film where character is more important than plot or action. When a director manages to slide up the middle, the result is captivating, engrossing and scrumptiously entertaining. Millénium: Le Film, based on Steig Larsson’s crime thriller trilogy of the same name, is all that and with an excellent Swedish cast that is fresh and talented to boot.
The long title of the film is Millénium, les hommes qui n’aimaient pas les femmes and it is an important element to keep in mind as you watch the action unfold. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a disgraced financial journalist whose latest scoop for the magazine, Millenium, has landed him in court and a six month term for libel. He’s released on a promise to serve his term in a half-way house. Meanwhile, a security firm is hired by the Vanger Group to suss out his background. The investigator assigned to his case is Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) whose methods to acquire information, while efficient, are not legal. She is a hacker who, after delivering her report to Vanger, continues to shadow Blomkvist’s computer out of interest.
The elderly patron of the Vanger Group, Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), hires Blomkvist to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Hariett Vanger 40 years before. Blomkvist agrees and begins to plaster the walls of a house loaned to him with pictures and documents in an attempt to solve the disappearance. It’s when he gets stymied by some notations in Hariett’s bible that Salander takes an interest and figures out that piece of the puzzle. She sends Blomkvist an email and they team up to solve the mystery.
As they get closer to the truth, they come across an even more horrible crime and that’s where the longer title of the film becomes apparent. Men in this film, with the exception of Blomkvist and the senior Vanger, are a despicable lot. They extort women, they rape them and make them the victims for their twisted and tormented acts. Salander’s guardian extorts her by forcing her to have sex with him in exchange for money to survive. He rapes her (in a scene that made most audience members squirm in their seats) but she captures that on film and turns the table, gaining the upper hand. And as Blomkvist and Salander delve deeper in the Vanger history, they discover new meaning to the term ‘family secret’.
If Larsson wanted to write a book about how shabbily men treat women in a supposedly enlightened Western, democratic country, and wrap it in the gloss of a cold case murder mystery, he succeeded. Director Neils Arden Opley has skillfully adapted the book, finding the balance between revealing bits of key information to keep the underlying plot moving and revealing aspects of the principal characters’ total makeup to provide depth and justification for the choices they make. The result is a fine piece of filmmaking, whose pacing is just right, and the performances of the main actors fresh, startling and a joy to the eyes to watch.
Millénium: Le Film, dubbed in French, in limited release at Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin & Beaubien.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Question: Is the series really that good or is it a big marketing scheme because of its background (i.e., published posthumously, etc.?)
I had no exposure to the series of books prior to seeing the film and was ignorant of the history behind the posthumous publication.
The film is an honest adaptation of the first book in the published trilogy (so my spouse informs me and she has read all three). But beyond that, the film itself is a standout piece. The pacing is just right, the actors superb, and in reality, it is a return to a type of filmaking the Americans have largely given up on – the making of a straight thriller, where the mystery is revealed at the end and there is no fireworks, smarmy dialogue or pyrotechniques to prop up a poor script or bad acting.
So, I say it again – go and see the film. It is enjoyable to watch and you’ll have plenty to discuss at the aprés-film coffee clutch.