THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

Sweden, 2009
Running Length: 129 minutes
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Georgi Staykov
Director:  Daniel Alfredson
Screenplay: Jonas Frykberg from the novel by Stieg Larsson
Cinematography: Peter Mokrosinski

Opens July 29th

The follow-up to the hugely successful The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire picks up the story of Lisbeth Salander about a year and a half after the previous film ended.  She has been lying low, not even communicating for several months with Millenium editor Mikael Blomqvist.  But now she is ready to come home.

Mikael has been working with a freelance journalist, Dag, who, with his girlfriend, has discovered that some very influential Swedes are involved with girls who have been illegally trafficked.  About to go public with names, Dag and his girlfriend are murdered and the gun bears prints belonging to none other than Lisbeth Salander.

Soon the police, as well as some very bad men are after her, forcing the tattooed woman to go to extreme measures to keep safe.  Her past will not stay buried and as the search for her deepens, we learn more about it and why these bad men might be so eager to get their hands on her.  Finally she must meet her past, face to face.

That’s all the plot detail I can go into without giving too much away.  Rest assured though, this is a tightly woven thriller with enough action to keep it dynamic even as it examines the darker sides of the characters’ psyches.  Clearly a bridging story, the film is open-ended, leaving us hanging on the edge of our seats for answers that will, I hope, be forthcoming in the third instalment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

As in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Noomi Rapace is perfect as Salander.  She brings to the character a steely toughness that is not hard or mean but underlined with vulnerability and sensitivity.  Creating a character this nuanced and complex on screen is no easy feat, yet Rapace makes it easy, even when some of the supporting cast make their villains almost cartoonish.