The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second in Stieg Larsson’s blockbuster mystery series, delivers more lurid thrills via its kinky, hard-kicking heroine
That Burning Sensation
by Ron Wynn
As with most sequels and transitional films, The Girl Who Played With Fire doesn't quite match the impact of its acclaimed predecessor, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which quickly became one of 2010's highest-grossing arthouse films upon its U.S. release earlier this year. Even though it replaces the original's director, Niels Arden Oplev, with Daniel Alfredson (who will also handle the third movie), it doesn't make any radical changes in style or atmosphere as it plows through the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" mystery series. But what the second movie in the trilogy lacks in surprise, it makes up in the lurid thrills, offbeat characters and anti-misogynist outrage that are Larsson's hallmarks.
While the look, language and sensibility of both productions reflect a Scandinavian foundation, the mindset and creative formula echo the detective mysteries and American cop procedurals Larsson admired. But the major difference comes in how these movies fill the gaps and spaces when the storyline isn't focusing on the crime. Where American cop shows follow a case like a piece of meat passing through the digestive tract of an institution — the crime lab in CSI, the squadroom and courtroom in Law & Order — The Girl Who Played With Fire concentrates much more on the psyche of its prime star, the colorful investigator Lisbeth Salander (played once again in spectacular fashion by Noomi Rapace).
Salander, bisexual and relentless, is a volatile goth avenger with genius hacker skills, extreme intelligence and a photographic memory. A sexual abuse survivor (an ugly past that gets recalled early in the film) betrayed by the very people entrusted with her care as a teen, she now trusts no one. Even her occasional lover Miriam (Yasmine Garbi) and her sometime investigative partner — the books' male hero, magazine publisher and crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) — find themselves kept in the dark unless (or more often, until) Salander feels she needs them.
Yet it's that suspicion that makes her a superb detective, personality defects and all. She's also unafraid to utilize violence on behalf of her cause, which typically involves thwarting sinister cabals or power elites who would assert brute force over women. Although Salander's far from physically imposing, she's tough enough to overcome all obstacles and endure savage amounts of abuse. (There may not be a moment here as agonizing as her rape by a sadistic parole officer in the previous film, but be warned that she takes a beating that would sideline men twice her size for months, if not permanently.)
While she was in a more supportive role to her journalist partner last time out, Salander takes center stage in The Girl Who Played With Fire. In the early scenes she's lounging on vacation out of the country. But after being falsely identified as the killer of a couple who were set to expose a human-trafficking ring, Salander returns only to be hounded by her own Lt. Gerard: a hulking, sinister figure (Micke Spreitz) who's supposedly impervious to pain. This character's central importance is one of the plot's big reveals, though like many other set pieces it serves as a prelude to what's coming later this fall in the finale.
Add some grisly revenge and torture scenes, plus a lesbian sex sequence that's light years beyond the timid montages favored in Hollywood product, and The Girl Who Played With Fire delivers sufficient twists and thrills to stay engrossing despite its continuity lapses. Curiously, the mystery ingredients prove the film's weak link, especially the flimsiness of the circumstantial evidence that suggests Salander committed the crime.
But Noomi Rapace's Lisbeth Salander is a rich, rare and complex creation. Women detectives have come a long way since Miss Marple, even if Agatha Christie is one of Larsson's avowed influences. Faced with the institutionalized sexual violence the author decries in such unsparing detail, Larsson's world doesn't need a sentimental sleuth but an avenging vigilante — a female Dark Knight. Any viewer who's followed her this far will probably stay with her to the end of her bitter quest.
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