David Fincher

Credit: Merrick Morton/Columbia Pictures

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

Originally posted 12/21/2011 08:30AM

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about power – who has it and who doesn't, but mainly how quickly it shifts.

Take a scene in the film's first hour: Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) is on a subway platform bothering no one when a foolish stranger snatches her backpack. Soon, she's capably retrieved her pack – and beaten the thief so savagely that passersby see her as the heinous one. In an instant she's gone from victim to victor to victimizer. And she's just getting started.

What may be most shocking about director David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's international bestseller is that it's shocking at all. After all, the book had such broad appeal that for at least a year you couldn't get on a plane, train or bus without seeing it clutched in someone's hands.

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