The Girl in the Spider’s Web did something right immediately out of the gate when the “sequel” was announced. Well, two things… tapping Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander and hiring Fede Alvarez to helm the project. Both were strokes of genius.
Back in 2011, Sony released The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with David Fincher behind the camera and Rooney Mara as the titular character. The film earned several Oscar nominations, including nods for Mara. It even scored a golden statue for Best Film Editing. Although it didn’t do as well at the box office as the studio would have liked, it generally was perceived as a positive take on author Stieg Larsson’s literary phenomenon.
With several other books in the series ready to be adapted, the calendar passed and passed and passed. It became clear that the Fincher-Mara talented tandem would not be returning for any future installments. In fact, it was thought that audiences would never see another incarnation of the blockbuster series that Larsson started.
Then, Sony announced that The Girl in the Spider’s Web would indeed be coming soon to a theater near you and with the actress-director pairing mentioned above, hopes were high. Now that it’s here… was it worth the seven year wait for some more sizzling Salander stories?
Absolutely.
Foy is sensational, and her hot streak continues that commenced the insanely awesome Unsane and continued with her scene stealing turn as Neil Armstrong’s wife in First Man. She is rapidly becoming the finest actress of her generation and staking a claim as “most likely to earn an Oscar before the age of 40.” She keenly understands Larsson’s creation. Nuances that are often hard to bring to life on the screen are easily explained in novel form with paragraphs devoted to emotional development and the ability for the reader to get inside the head of a cerebral character such as Salander. That’s what makes Foy such a terrific choice to tackle the girl with the dragon tattoo. She does so much with her face and body. She builds a character from the inside out in a manner that takes the audience for a ride that is rich, layered and a multi-dimensional experience.
This time out, we get to understand a bit more of what makes the heroine tick as The Girl in the Spider’s Web commences with Lisbeth as a little girl. She is playing chess with her sister Camilla as the siblings are summoned by their father. Without much being said, an enormous amount of exposition is revealed in this opening scene that provides more of a definition as to what it is that makes Lisbeth Lisbeth. We never got that from Fincher’s version (which we adored). Sadly, the weight of this reveal is slightly lost over the course of the film and never fully realized as the action gets heavy and emotions are tied up in other arenas.
A trio of screenwriters (including Alverez) penned a script that works for the large part, but gets distracted by a complex web of dramatic weight.
The crux of the story follows Salander and her hacker/righter of wrongs protagonist being summoned by Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant). He has developed a software that he believes in the wrong hands, could be a monster and destroyer of all we hold dear. Basically, any individual possessing this program could start a nuclear war all on their own. Kind of makes you wonder what Balder thought his programming skills would result in from the beginning? But if you look too deeply into that, you don’t have a movie!
Salander dives in and don’t you know it, she scores the program from the CIA—which does not sit well with Lakeith Stanfield’s (Get Out) agent Edwin Needham. As soon as it becomes clear that the software is being hacked and stolen, he is on a flight to Sweden to take care of this issue himself. That does not sit well with Swedish investigators, who intercept him at the airport. It’s a plot complication that seems out of left field and unwarranted. This is a perfect example of the meandering of the script that—on occasion—fails the stellar cast and helmer that are trying to deliver a tightly knit web (pun intended) of suspense that is the hallmark of the Dragon Tattoo series.
Alvarez is coming off a double dose of horror highs, the Evil Dead remake and the surprise smash that is 2016’s Don’t Breathe. Moving beyond the horror genre, he makes a sensational splash in the action/thriller arena with expertly executed action sequences that show this is a director whose name alone should get people in the seats. He works wonders too with the script, that he co-wrote, and manages to make those moments—that take us a tad out of the forward momentum of the thrilling story—and have them merely be momentary hiccups instead of dramatic road blocks. A director with lesser talents, those script holes would be a cinematic death kiss.
Foy dives in to the character in a manner that is unlike anything we’ve seen from her prior. I truly hope that this film resonates with audiences and those box office numbers are solid. She deserves another go-around as Salander. Hopefully, she and Alvarez will not suffer the same fate as Mara and Fincher. Mara was a terrific Salander, but there is something about what Foy brings to the role that is over and above the Mara take on Lisbeth.
There is an emotional connection between the audience and Foy’s Salander that ensnares us in her world. Sure, the Larsson crafted character is brash, harsh and one who hides her own emotions. That is not saying she’s devoid of feelings. Foy—with her deep gifts—brings out parts of the soul that has been absent from any previous version of the Girl.
Grade: B