The Films of Fincher — Part 8: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

In anticipation of David Fincher’s new film, Mank, I am revisiting and reflecting on (almost) his entire filmography. The previous entry was The Social Network (2010).

Of course David Fincher was offered the opportunity to direct an American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, he’s made a career of dark material; but in the case of the 2011 film, what Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian were given, was a very unique opportunity. Having already been adapted into the 2009 Swedish trilogy, starring Noomi Rapace, for Fincher and Zaillian there was an opportunity to emphasize and elevate alternate ideas found within the best-selling source material.

There are of course stark differences between the Swedish and American adaptations, but where the American version takes liberties and goes ‘off-the-page’ Fincher supplies style, in spades, and a fuller characterization. I can’t help but wonder how, or in what way, Se7en (1995) and Zodiac (2007) prepared Fincher for this piece; and in some ways The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a stylistic convergence of those two films. Nevertheless, the film is a masterful meditation on evil and the choices we have when it is inflicted upon us.

The narrative arc of this story draws many parallels, though they are subtle. At the…