Savage Screen

This weekend I had a chance to see “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the film based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Normally, a movie based on a thriller would have kept me away, but the reviews were just too good to ignore.

It was the right decision. I loved it.

Dark and atmospheric, well-acted and -shot, the film was always absorbing for the entirety of its 2.5 hours. You might be asking yourself why you haven’t seen this movie around if it’s supposed to be so good and based on such a popular book.

The short answer: It’s Swedish. (As soon as you utter that word, someone will let out a blood-curdling scream.)

Because chances are you’ll never see this film, it’s worth considering all of its offenses — for one, that long running time. No American movie that isn’t an epic is allowed to be longer than two hours. There’s also a lack of actors familiar to Americans.

But in the end, the subtitles are the biggest problem for an international film’s survival in the United States.

Too many Americans would never even consider watching a film with subtitles.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” will now march down the path toward an American remake, one that almost any successful foreign film must take.

Perusing IMDb.com, it seems like most of the information on the remake is scarce and subject to change. David Fincher is currently slated to direct, a good sign, based on his history with dark, intelligent thrillers.

In the acting department, Daniel Craig is listed for Mikael Blomkvist, another good sign. He can do the steely and reserved dignity that was featured in the original film.
The problem comes with the title character, Lisbeth Salander. Carey Mulligan is rumored to play the part, but as good an actress as “An Education” showed her to be, she isn’t right for this film.

It’s frightening to think about everything that will probably change in the remake. The running time will be cut by at least half an hour, Lisbeth Salander will look less goth-y, so as to be more marketable, and the darkest scenes will be softened to appeal to all the people who made the book a best-seller.

So why must we remake a film that’s exciting and not even old?

Too bad Americans don’t know how to read subtitles.