8 / 10
Men Who Hate Women
The original Swedish title of Stieg Larsson’s novel, and of this film, translates as Men Who Hate Women. That tells you more about what it’s about than the English title does. It’s a murder mystery. It’s also a furious catalogue of violence against women, and it doesn’t soften any of it.
Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist, has just been convicted of libelling a crooked businessman. Before he goes to prison, he’s hired by Henrik Vanger, an elderly industrialist, to solve the disappearance of his niece, Harriet, who vanished from the family’s island in 1966. Henrik is convinced one of his own relatives killed her.
Niels Arden Oplev directed the film, released in 2009, and it was a huge hit across Europe before most Americans had heard of it.
Lisbeth
The real star is Lisbeth Salander, a young hacker and investigator who works for a security firm and trusts absolutely nobody. She’s small, pierced, tattooed and silent, and she’s the smartest person in every room. She’s been failed by every institution that was meant to protect her, and she’s decided to protect herself.
Noomi Rapace plays her, and few performances of the decade come close. She’s fierce, guarded and wounded, and she barely speaks, but you always know what she’s thinking. Rooney Mara was very good in David Fincher’s remake, but Rapace is Lisbeth. Nobody else comes close.
For Writers
Lisbeth barely speaks, and the audience always knows what she’s thinking. The character is built from action, silence and small reactions.
A quiet character can be the most vivid in a story, if every gesture counts. Readers pay closer attention to a character who doesn’t explain herself. Give yours a few precise habits, a few crucial choices and very little dialogue, and trust the reader to fill in the rest.
Try writing a scene for your most important character with no dialogue at all. Show everything through what they do. If the scene still works, you’ve found their real voice. If it doesn’t, you’ve been relying on dialogue to do a job the character should be doing.
The Guardian
A subplot follows Lisbeth’s dealings with her new state-appointed guardian, Bjurman, a lawyer who controls her money and uses that power to abuse her. Oplev shows what he does in scenes that are genuinely hard to watch, and then her revenge, cold, calculated and utterly satisfying.
It’s the most disturbing part of the film, and an essential one. It shows you what Lisbeth has survived, why she trusts no one and why she’s so determined to see men like him punished. It also sets up her relationship with Blomkvist, the first man in the film who treats her as a colleague and a person.
Viewers should know going in that these scenes are explicit and brutal. The film doesn’t look away, and it isn’t meant to be comfortable.
For Writers
Oplev shows what Lisbeth survives, then shows her revenge. The audience understands her mistrust and her ferocity because it has seen the cause.
Decide what your hardest character has been through, and find one scene, not necessarily the worst event, that lets the reader see it. Then let every later choice carry that weight. The reader will stop asking why the character is so hard and start asking what it would take to reach them.
A character’s harshness only feels earned if the reader understands where it came from. You don’t have to show every detail of a trauma, but the reader needs enough to understand why the character behaves as they do. Otherwise they’re just being difficult.
Blomkvist
Michael Nyqvist plays Blomkvist as a decent, rumpled, slightly weary man, stubborn and principled and a little out of his depth. He’s a journalist, no action hero, and he solves things by reading old photographs, interviewing people and following paper trails.
His partnership with Lisbeth is the heart of the story. He’s warm, she’s frozen, and they gradually learn to trust each other. Nyqvist, who died in 2017, gives the film a steady centre, and his chemistry with Rapace is understated and convincing.
The Vanger Family
The mystery on Hedeby Island is a classic locked-room puzzle, with a closed community, a bridge blocked by a car accident on the day Harriet disappeared and a family full of suspects. The Vangers are a nasty lot: bitter old men, including former Nazis, feuding siblings and secrets buried for decades.
Blomkvist and Lisbeth work through old photographs, Bible verses and cold-case files, and the investigation is gripping. Oplev takes his time. The story is more patient and procedural than most Hollywood thrillers, so the discoveries feel earned when they come.
For Writers
The mystery unfolds through photographs, files and interviews, patiently and procedurally. The discoveries feel earned because the audience watches the work.
Map out the clues in your mystery and give each one its own scene of discovery. Let at least one of them come from a character’s particular skill, so the reader sees why this person, and nobody else, could solve it. That’s what turns a puzzle into a character story, and it’s what readers remember after the solution fades.
Readers love watching competent people solve problems. If your story involves an investigation, show the work: the dead ends, the small breakthroughs, the moment a detail clicks. The payoff will feel far more satisfying than a sudden revelation.
Cold Sweden
Everything looks bleak and beautiful, all grey skies, snowy islands and cold modern interiors. This is a very Scandinavian kind of crime story: quiet, grim and focused on the rot underneath a prosperous, orderly society. The violence, when it arrives, is sudden and ugly.
Two sequels followed quickly, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, which aren’t as good. Larsson himself died of a heart attack in 2004, before any of the novels were published, and never saw their enormous success.
The Killer
The solution, when it comes, is chilling, and it ties together the story’s themes of inherited evil and men who get away with hurting women for decades. The climax, in a basement, is tense and horrible, and Lisbeth’s choice at the end is characteristically ruthless.
The final section, wrapping up Blomkvist’s libel case and Lisbeth’s own clever scheme, is a satisfying payoff that catches her at her sharpest. The last shot of her, reinvented and on the move, is a perfect exit for the character.
Long and Hard to Watch
It runs past two and a half hours. The ending takes its time wrapping up. Some viewers will find the pacing slow, and the violence, especially the sexual violence, is extremely hard to watch. It looks a little flat, too, compared with Fincher’s glossier remake.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a gripping, grim, intelligent thriller with one of the great heroines in modern crime fiction, and Noomi Rapace makes her unforgettable.
Craft Note
Craft Note
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo pairs a decent, rumpled journalist with a damaged, gifted outsider, and the mystery gives them a reason to learn to trust each other. The investigation drives the plot, and the partnership drives the heart.
A mystery becomes richer when solving it forces two very different characters to depend on each other. The case gives them a shared goal, and their differences give the story friction.
Pair your detective with someone who has the skills they lack and the temperament they don’t understand. Let the case force them to rely on each other.
Know What You’re Getting
Yes, with a warning. It’s an 8: a cold, gripping Swedish thriller with Noomi Rapace’s ferocious, definitive Lisbeth Salander and a patient, satisfying mystery. The sexual violence is explicit and hard to watch, so know that going in.
Frequently Asked Questions
This film appears on 2 of my film lists