The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a 2011 thriller film directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Stieg Larsson. Starring Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, it tells the story of Blomkvist's investigation to find out what happened to a girl from a wealthy family who had disappeared 40 years earlier. He recruits the help of Salander, a computer hacker.
Sony Pictures began development on the film in 2009. It took the company a few months to obtain the film adaptation rights to the novel, while also recruiting Zaillian and Fincher. The casting process for the lead roles was intense; Craig faced scheduling conflicts, and a number of actresses were sought for the role of Lisbeth Salander. The script took over six months to write, which included three months of analyzing the novel.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo premiered at Odeon Leicester Square in London on December 12, 2011, and was released in the United States on December 21, by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film grossed $233 million against a $90 million production budget and received acclaim from critics, with praise for Craig and Mara's performances as well as Fincher's direction, the score, and the film's tone and visuals. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2011 and was a candidate for numerous awards, winning, among others, the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, while Mara's performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 84th Academy Awards.
A soft reboot and sequel, The Girl in the Spider's Web, was released in October 2018.
Plot
In Stockholm, journalist Mikael Blomkvist is recovering from the legal and professional fallout of a libel suit brought against him by businessman Hans-Erik Wennerström. The wealthy Henrik Vanger offers to give Blomkvist evidence against Wennerström in exchange for the performance of an unusual task: investigating the 40-year-old disappearance and presumed murder of Henrik's grandniece, 16-year-old Harriet.
Harriet had always given Vanger a framed pressed flower on his birthday, and he has continued to receive them every year since she disappeared. He believes her killer is taunting him. Blomkvist moves into a cottage on the Vanger family's island estate and starts his investigation.
Lisbeth Salander is an asocial investigator and hacker who is antagonized by her state-appointed guardian, Nils Bjurman. Bjurman controls Salander's finances and extorts sexual favors by threatening to have her institutionalized. In one meeting, Bjurman chains Salander to his bed and brutally anally rapes her, unaware that she is recording his actions. At their next meeting, Salander tasers Bjurman, binds him, rapes him with a steel dildo, and tattoos an ignominious message across his chest. Using the recording she made, she blackmails him into giving her financial independence and ceasing contact with her.
Blomkvist explores the island and interviews Vanger's relatives living there, many of whom were Nazis or Nazi sympathizers during World War II. He uncovers a list of names and numbers that he learns are Bible verse references. Blomkvist recruits Salander as his research assistant, and she discovers a connection between the list and a number of young women brutally murdered from 1947 to 1967 across Sweden, which suggests the activity of a serial killer. Many of the victims had given names from the Old Testament, leading her to theorize that they were Jewish and that the murders were motivated by anti-semitism.
One morning, Blomkvist finds his cat's mutilated corpse on the doorstep. Another time, someone shoots at him, the bullet grazing his forehead. After Salander tends to his wound, she initiates sex.
Investigating separate leads, Blomkvist and Salander both deduce that Harriet's late father, Gottfried, committed the first murders and Martin, her brother, those that took place after Gottfried's death. While looking for more proof in Martin's house, Blomkvist is caught by him, gassed unconscious, and restrained in a specially prepared basement. Martin brags about killing and raping women for decades, like his father, but denies knowing what happened to Harriet. As Martin prepares to kill Blomkvist, Salander arrives and wounds Martin, forcing him to flee in his car. Pursued by Salander on her motorcycle, Martin drives off the road and hits a propane tank, which explodes and kills him. As she nurses Blomkvist back to health, Salander, who has become emotionally attached to him, reveals that she was institutionalized after attempting to burn her father alive as a child.
Blomkvist and Salander deduce that Harriet is alive and in hiding, and they find her in London. Harriet reveals that Gottfried sexually abused both her and Martin for an entire year before she defended herself by drowning him when she was 14. After witnessing Harriet kill their father, Martin continued to sexually abuse her. Her cousin Anita smuggled her off the island and let Harriet assume her identity in London; Anita and her husband were later killed in a car accident. Finally free of her brother, Harriet returns to Sweden and tearfully reunites with Henrik.
Henrik gives Blomkvist the promised information against Wennerström, but it proves to be outdated, and any statutes of limitations have run out. Salander reveals that she has hacked Wennerström's accounts and discovered he is laundering money for various criminal syndicates. She gives Blomkvist evidence of Wennerström's crimes, which Blomkvist publishes in a scathing editorial, ruining Wennerström and bringing Blomkvist to national prominence. Salander, in disguise, travels to Switzerland and removes two billion euros from Wennerström's secret accounts. Wennerström is later murdered in an apparent gangland shooting.
On her way to give Blomkvist a Christmas present, Salander sees him being affectionate with his boss and long-time lover, Erika Berger. She discards the gift and rides away on her motorcycle.
Cast
Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist: An investigative journalist and the co-owner of Swedish magazine Millennium who takes on the case of Henrik Vanger's missing grandniece. Blomkvist is devoted to exposing the corruptions and malfeasance of government, attracting infamy for his tendency to "go too far". Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander: An asocial computer hacker who has survived severe emotional and sexual abuse since her childhood. The character was a "vulnerable victim-turned-vigilante" with the "take-no-prisoners" attitude of Lara Croft and the "cool, unsentimental intellect" of Spock. David Fincher felt that Salander's eccentric persona was enthralling, and stated, "there's a kind of wish fulfillment to her in the way that she takes care of things, the way she will only put up with so much, but there are other sides to her as well." Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger: The retired CEO of Vanger Industries who launches an extensive investigation into his family's affairs, with hopes of discovering what happened to his grandniece, Harriet. Despite calling the Vanger family "dysfunctional", Plummer said of the character: "I love the character of the old man, and I sympathize with him. He's really the nicest old guy in the whole book. Everybody is a bit suspect, and still are at the end. Old Vanger has a nice straight line, and he gets his wish." Plummer wanted to imbue the character with irony, an element he found to be absent from the novel's Henrik. "I think that the old man would have it," he opined, "because he's a very sophisticated old guy [...] used to a great deal of power. So in dealing with people, he would be very good [...] he would be quite jokey, and know how to seduce them." Julian Sands portrays a young Henrik Vanger. Stellan Skarsgård as Martin Vanger: Henrik's grandnephew and the current CEO of Vanger Industries. Skarsgård was allured by the character's dual nature, and was fascinated that he got to portray him in "two totally different ways". Regarding Martin's "very complex" and "complicated" personality, the Swedish actor said, "He can be extremely charming, but he also can seem to be a completely different person at different points in the film." While consulting with Fincher, the director wanted Skarsgård to play Martin without reference to the book. Steven Berkoff as Dirch Frode, Head Legal Counsel for Vanger Industries Robin Wright as Erika Berger: Blomkvist's business partner and editor-in-chief of Millennium magazine. She is also Blomkvist's occasional lover. Yorick van Wageningen as Nils Bjurman: Salander's sexually abusive legal guardian. Fincher wanted the character to be worse than a typical antagonist, although he did not want to emulate the stereotypical "mustache-twirling pervert". The director considered Van Wageningen to be the embodiment of a versatile actor—one who was a "full-fledged human being" and a "brilliant" actor. "He was able to bring his performance from a logical place in Bjurman's mind and find the seething morass of darkness inside," Fincher stated. Bjurman's multifaceted psyche was the main reason Van Wageningen wanted to play the role. The Dutch actor said, "This character goes through a lot and I wasn't quite sure I wanted to go through all that. I started out half way between the elation of getting to work with David Fincher and the dread of this character, but I was able to use both of those things. We both thought the most interesting route would be for Bjurman to seem half-affable. The challenge was not in finding the freak violence in the guy but finding the humanity of him." Joely Richardson as Harriet Vanger: Henrik's long-lost grandniece who went into hiding posing as her cousin Anita. In performing her "tricky" character, Richardson recalled that Fincher wanted her to embrace a "darker, edgier" persona, without sugarcoating, and not "resolved or healed". "Even if you were starting to move towards the direction of resolved or healed, he still wanted it edgy and dark. There are no straightforward emotions in the world of this film." Moa Garpendal portrays a young Harriet Vanger. Goran Višnjić as Dragan Armansky, head of Milton Security, Salander's employer Donald Sumpter as Detective Morell. David Dencik portrays a young Morell. Ulf Friberg as Hans-Erik Wennerström, CEO of the Wennerström Group Geraldine James as Cecilia Vanger Embeth Davidtz as Annika Giannini, Mikael's sister and a lawyer Josefin Asplund as Pernilla Blomkvist, Mikael's daughter Per Myrberg as Harald Vanger. Gustaf Hammarsten portrays a young Harald. Arly Jover as Liv, Martin's girlfriend Tony Way as Plague, Salander's hacker friend Fredrik Dolk as Bertil Camnermarker, Counsel for the Wennerström Group Alan Dale as Detective Isaksson Leo Bill as Trinity, another of Salander's hacker friends Élodie Yung as Miriam Wu, Salander's occasional lover Joel Kinnaman as Christer Malm, a journalist at Millennium
Production
Conception and writing The success of Stieg Larsson's novel created Hollywood interest in adapting the book, as became apparent in 2009 when Sony's Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal pursued the idea of developing an "American" version unrelated to the Swedish film adaptation released that year. By December, two major developments occurred for the project: Steven Zaillian, who had recently completed the script for Moneyball (2011), became the screenwriter, while producer Scott Rudin finalized a partnership allocating full copyrights to Sony. Zaillian, who was unfamiliar with the novel, got a copy from Rudin. The screenwriter recalled, "They sent it to me and said, 'We want to do this. We will think of it as one thing for now. It's possible that it can be two and three, but let's concentrate on this one.'" After reading the book, the screenwriter did no research on the subject.