L Panayi

I wanted to like this and I'm sure the cast did the best they could with the material they were given, but I found the show incredibly badly scripted, wooden, and unrealistic. The dialogue was just *stilted monologue revealing backstory* over and over and over again. Accents were fake and unconvincing and it really seemed to have been written by people who were basing the dialogue purely on out-of-context snippets of conversations overheard at bus stops. Characters were stereotypical to the point of naivete on the part of writers and to really stick the boot in, all the writing seemed to have a misogynistic bent. In short, this series was like the worst type of Radio 4 play, on an interminable loop.

Although the story (of the book and the film) is, IMO, rather far-fetched and meandering, and the whole premise far more James Bond-esque than you'd have thought necessary for this franchise, I did really enjoy Foy's portrayal of Salander, and also the wonderfully bleak and arty style of filming. I'd have liked more dialogue from her, slightly less from the somewhat bland Mikael, and-ideally- to drop the unbelievable 'sister' storyline altogether. Nevertheless, I do actually like the film a lot. To me; Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara, and Foy all bring different angles to Salander, with somehow more depth than she has in the books, and I like them all in their own way. One reviewer mentioned that "The first red flag (they had of it being a bad film) was during an introduction of Lisbeth now an adult, running through a party just to sit at a window, smoke a ciggarrete (sic) and brood. (Ooh wow)." I have to disagree here. I found this particular scene powerful and moving. It's a club, not a party- and I think we're meant to see where Salander goes to wind down. Not to chat, not to dance, but to get her thoughts straight, and to be around people without being forced to interact with people. It's her comfort-zone and the place where she can feel most anonymous. I also liked that her date/ on-off partner was more loyal and closer to her than we were initially let to expect. That was a nice touch, I thought. Plus (spoiler alert) the pet. Just to add, I enjoyed the original books on the whole, but thought the female actors put more nuance and realism into the character of Lisbeth than Larsson did himself, but I didn't actually enjoy the ...'Spider's Web' book. I found it incredibly dull and frustrating. I thought August was quite badly written (speaking from an autistic perspective) and only marginally better portrayed in the film, and Balder himself was better kept to a minimum, but really these were fairly minor gripes as I still loved the sense of over-the-top spectacle, combined with the dryly-understated acting that the film carried off so well. And I found it visually very appealing with a decent, unobtrusive soundtrack.