Film - The Girl Who Played with Fire

By Richard Aindow
Genre: Thriller
Starring: Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist
Directed by: Daniel Alfredson
Origin: Sweden | Denmark | Germany

Running Time: 129 minutes

Rating: 16

Score: 3 out of 5

Compare and contrast. Dreaded words in any arts student’s essay lexicon but ones transformed for the better in reviewing the second part of a trilogy. The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, The Two Towers. Enough said.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first part of Steig Larsson’s Millennium series, was a runaway success at the box office; dark and dirty in nature but with cinematography to drool over. With a new director, Daniel Alfredson, on board for the second instalment, The Girl Who Played with Fire has a lot to live up to. Just the clamour of fans that have already bought 27 million books would be enough to keep any director awake at night.

Resuming the action one year on, The Girl who Played with Fire sees Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), Larsson’s spellbinding techno-Goth creation, returning to Stockholm from living in the Caribbean on her fraudulently obtained millions. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is back at the helm of Millennium magazine investigating all that is ill in Swedish society and is assisting new recruit, Dag Svensson, compile the evidence against prominent men involved in a sex trafficking racket.

Things take a turn for the worse when Dag is murdered and the prints on the gun belong to Lisbeth – Mikael and Lisbeth are then reunited, although not in person, during the hunt for the real killer. As we get nearer to the truth, Lisbeth and Mikael uncover more disturbing secrets about this case and Lisbeth’s past (which generally portray Sweden as the least savoury place on earth).

Without having read the novels, the relative strength of each plot is difficult to judge. Cinematographically, however, The Girl who Played with Fire is more flimsy and less compelling than the first film. It could just be that the missing strengths of previous director, Niels Arden Oplev, make the difference. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looked spectacular with icy Swedish backdrops and saturated interiors and sounded just as good through perfectly-realised orchestral manoeuvres. Conversely, this second chapter feels anonymous; Sweden could be anywhere in Europe; the electro-accompanied soundtrack is just as generic. Added to this the little things are not quite right. An appalling makeup job here: a ridiculous fight scene there. The devil is in the detail.

More positively, Noomi Rapace is just as perfect– the degree to which becomes entwined with Lisbeth Salander is a masterclass in character acting. This role will define her career. Michael Nyqvist, this time under utilised, does all he can but we really miss the spark between Rapace and him that lit up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

At the end of The Girl Who Played with Fire one is left with a peculiar sense of displacement – it felt exactly like watching a defective Empire Strikes Back in modern day Sweden with worse baddies. Fans will be slightly less happy but still engaged; the uninitiated should definitely watch the first instalment before this one. We can all hope the final episode is better.