Cast: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Sven-Bertil Taube

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Screenwriters: Rasmus Heisterberg, Nicolaj Arcel

Some may find this two and a half hour long, highly disturbing Swedish thriller a little too much to chow down in one go, but not us. Adapted from the book of the same name by journalist Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo follows Mikael Blomkvist’s (Nyqvist), a journalist hired by Henrik Vanger (Taube), investigation of the disappearance of his niece forty years prior. Meanwhile, feisty bombshell Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) is simultaneously hired to check Mikael’s ability to do the job, and once Mikael realizes what she’s up to he recruits her photographic mind and computer hacking skills for his investigation.

But there’s a back story behind every character; Mikael has been forced to cut himself loose from his job at social rights magazine Millenium after, seemingly wrongly, being found guilty in a libel case, and Lisbeth is legally bound to serve appointment time with a sexually abusive social worker. Her back story is something of a mystery that will, if the Larsson’s novels are anything to go by, be explained in the next of the murder mystery trilogy.

What follows is a continuously surprising, genuinely shocking and frequently quite disgusting journey that exposes all the key cast members as liars, murderers, thieves, rapists, or abusers. Rapace is fantastic as the feisty, internally troubled Lisbeth, a girl so trapped by wounds of her past that she has no regard for sentimentality and a complete inability to connect to others; until she meets Mikael, of course. Their relationship is frustrating and gratifying for both members, as Mikael tries to show Lisbeth how to let go of her inhibitions. It’s pointless trying not to feel emotionally attached to the couple, to want them to succeed.

Beneath the main protagonists’ stories, the film is also a social commentary on the deceit and adultery that happens behind closed doors, violence against women and the corruption behind journalism taking center stage.

Where in the book she carries the story, the film focuses more on the investigation than the life of Lisbeth, which is no bad thing; the mystery shrouding her screwed-up personality is undeniably intriguing, and her bollocks-to-everything attitude is refreshing and surprisingly delightful to watch. The whodunit plot bubbles along nicely, with Mikel and Lisbeth uncovering twists and turns in the story at every clue they find – some a little too convenient, we must admit, but then aren’t all murder mysteries? – and a completely unforeseen ending that serves to both satisfy the viewer and set them up for the subsequent two films to follow.

By Cathy Reay

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is out now courtesy of Momentum Pictures.