I've just been to see movie The Girl Who Played With Fire, the sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I am now tearing through the third and final volume of Swedish writer Stieg Larsson's gripping trilogy and eagerly anticipating the third film.
While I preferred the first movie, I enjoyed both the Swedish made films of the novels. But this being L.A, of course there's an American remake on the way.
Oh no, I hear you groan, let's see what a dog's dinner Hollywood can make of yet another excellent European movie.
Just as films of your favourite novel never seem to quite measure up, American remakes of foreign films often fall short of the original.
I'm still waiting to see what happens to the fine French thriller Cache, which has been optioned by a couple of big Hollywood hitters including Ron Howard but still (perhaps mercifully) hasn't reached the screen yet.
It's not all bad news. At the helm of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is David Fincher who made The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Seven.
Casting is everything of course, and let's hope Mr Fincher doesn't yield to studio pressure to go the commercial route, but gives us at least half as interesting a choice as Noomi Rapace, who nails the role of Salander in the Swedish movies so brilliantly.
And, Mr Fincher, can you please keep the author's lovely intention of having Blomkvist eat and drink his way through every crisis: "He put on his sports jacket and went downstairs. He ordered a coffee and a cheese and liver pate sandwich.....Blomkvist bought a pasta meal from the 7-Eleven on his way home..."
Come on, it's part of Micke's character. In fact, everyone is constantly chowing down or drinking coffee in the books. Please keep that in - I know Mr Larsson put it in for a reason.
I'm hopeful that Mr Fincher will give us something that conveys the complexity and intelligence of the books, but going on past records, I'm not convinced that something will not be lost in translation. I'd love to be proved wrong!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)

2 comments:
I agree totally with you on this - of course I couldn't read the whole blog in case there were spoilers, seeing as I'm only a third of the way through book 1. But American remakes of perfectly good films often miss the point by casting box-office-drawing celebs that don't fit the characters. So I hope they won't ruin this trilogy.
Hey, it may be all right - they've cast Daniel Craig as Michael Blomqvist!
Post a Comment