No ordinary Hollywood heroine

The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009)
Certified: 18
Duration: 129 minutes
Directed by: Daniel Alfredson
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Tehilla Blad, Lena Endre, Peter Andersson, Per Oscarsson, Sofia Ledarp
KRS release

The Girl Who Played With Fire is adapted from the second novel in the million-selling Millennium Trilogy by late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It follows the events that happened in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

There has been little contact between investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). This does not mean that Lisbeth is not keeping tabs on Mikael, or at least on his computer.

When Salander makes a return, one of Mikael’s researchers, Dag (Hans Christian Thulin) and his girlfriend Mia (Jennie Silverhjelm), end up dead. He had been working on a sex trafficking scandal that would have compromised a lot of important people. The fingerprints on the scene throw the blame on Salander. This is further reinforced when the owner of the gun, who had been her guardian, is also found dead that same night. The media circus and the police are soon hunting Salander, however Mikael is not ready to believe all this.

The police do not want Mikael to get involved. Meanwhile, Salander tells Mikael that he needs to find the mysterious “Zala” and thus prove her innocence. This leads to events that include chases, beatings, rape, frame-ups and, inevitably enough, fire.

Fans of the first film will find a lot to like in this one. Director Daniel Alfredson has built a well-paced thriller around the enigmatic performance of wild-eyed Noomi Rapace. It is very difficult not to fall under her spell as Ms Rapace really immerses herself into the character of Lisbeth Salander. The screen is dominated by her hypnotic and anger-fuelled gaze.

Like the first film, this second outing once again shows off the coldness of the characters and the rottenness that lies at the core of the society that it is projecting. This time around, the film tackles and casts its web farther as it weaves a web of lies and deceits. New villains – with one of them seeming to be an extra from a 1970s James Bond movie – and more and more plot twists and sub-plots are brought in.

What is refreshing in this thriller is that unlike most Hollywood films where the heroine is also a victim and she is expected to be locking her mouth in passionate kisses with the hero while evading bullets, Salander is completely different. The character has seen her fair share of abuse but she is also not beyond extracting her own version of justice, while the characters of Salander and Nykvist seem to complement each other even better when they are apart!

By the end of the film we discover new aspects of Salander and of her will to expose the monsters that seem to prey on the weak. She is an exquisite character with layer upon layer of complexity that makes her such a compulsive focus of the film.