The Film Buzz Rating: 
(7.5/10)
The second adaptation of the stark Swedish Millennium trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson continues the brutal tale of the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander. Being one of the few, underrated foreign films on our big screen this year, The Girl Who Played With Fire has every reason to stand out.
The Plot
Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns to Sweden after having spent a year abroad, and reconnects with past allies, including Miriam Wu (Yasmine Garbi) to whom she offers her apartment. Mikael Blomvkist (Michael Nyqvist) resumes his position at Millennium magazine and encounters Dag Svensson (Hans Christian Thulin) – a fresh, enthusiastic journalist with a proposal that is of great interest to Blomvkist.
The race begins however when Svensson, his girlfriend, and Nils Erik Bjurman (Peter Andersson) – Salander’s “rapist and sadistic pig” of a guardian – are discovered brutally murdered by Bjurman’s gun, coated with none other than Salander’s fingerprints.
With little evidence against the accusation, the rebellious computer-hacker becomes the prime suspect although Blomvkist, strongly rooting for Salander’s innocence, applies his greatest endeavours to clear her name while she begins her own investigation. As well as revealing the true culprit, even darker family secrets are unveiled.
The Thoughts
Having fallen in lust with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I yearned for this film to be released but as most sequels do – The Girl Who Played With Fire had not quite provided the ‘hit’ that I had pleasurably absorbed in its predecessor.
The subtlety of this film however, may be valued upon consideration of its cinematic position – it is ultimately, the second of a significantly dark, intense trilogy. I suspect that director Daniel Alfredson had intended it to assume the stance of a bridging between the shocking initial film and the (expectantly) climatic final – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – therefore sustaining a calmer, restrained intermediate film.
A feature that undoubtedly did not disappoint however, was the remarkable character that is Lisbeth Salander. She is still portrayed as an admirably tough, invincible persona, though the audience is allowed this time to receive a glimpse of an astonishingly warmer, more humane side – making her all the more desirable – particularly in the scene with her former guardian, Holger Palmgren (played by Per Oscarssen).
Salander does indeed preserve her punchy attitude and masculine form, yet I felt as if she appeared a little more – dare I say it – vulnerable, in this film. Perhaps this is due to the fly-on-wall, documentary-esque perspective that the audience is given, permitting us to observe Salander’s oddities; such as the frequency of hesitation in her actions when she would otherwise not show the slightest doubt, the passionate, intimate relationship with Miriam Wu, or the psychological trauma she replays after interfering with twisted family secrets, or possibly a delicate combination of all, but there is certainly something more relatable about her in this film, thus enabling my “spectator transition” from lust to love.
The character of Mikael Blomvkist, played by the ruggedly handsome Michael Nyqvist, I felt had not altered the slightest – a feature I was indebted to because the contrast between his gentle, charismatic personality and that of Lisbeth Salander was strangely satisfying, and much needed in both films. He was although, not as centred as he had appeared in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, yet his character sustains the persistent loyalty and emotional attachment to the mysterious, leather-clad wild child almost as if she is his drug – but it is her bubbling, concealed sentiment for him that enhances Blomvkist’s significance, regardless of his direct involvement in the plot.
The gloomy, sometimes bleak lighting, the understated realism, and incredible character development were all gratefully maintained in this film, yet I feel as if the utterly frank and hand-over-mouth ambience that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had fabricated was somewhat absent. Considering that this is a large slice of what had consumed me in the first film, the sequel thus drops its gravity despite it being a generally captivating story.
The Film Buzz Rating: (7.5/10)
UK Release Date: 27 August 2010
Director: Daniel Alfredson
Writer: Jonas Frykberg (screenplay), Stieg Larsson (novel)
