Sin #65: The Story of a Girl

Every time there’s an author writing a potential bestseller there’s a producer behind trying to turn it into a movie, mainly because the success of it is pretty much guaranteed. Of course, it’s always tough adapting a book and we’ve seen countless adaptation that have failed miserably either because they are way too faithful to the original source or not close enough. Most of the best passages in a book work better in our imaginations than on the movie screen so it’s always a tricky business.

Take something like “The Da Vinci Code” for example, a movie which I hated. First of all I must confess that I’ve never read anything written by Dan Brown so I can’t judge the quality of the adaptation; all I know is that the movie is bland, tiresome and tedious, with characters who never come alive (not even with the skill of some very fine actors like Tom Hanks or Audrey Tatou). People who love the book call it a real page-turner, dynamic, exciting and very entertaining. So, what went wrong?

Then there’s “The Twilight Saga”, Stephanie Meyer’s love story between a girl and a vampire (merely the remnants of the concept really since Meyer ignores almost every convention from the vampire mythology. If its real vampires you seek go read an Anne Rice novel). So far, there has been three movies based on the books and it’s astounding to witness its popularity among female fans (I guess there are some men in there, but they are among the minority for sure). Some twilight enthusiasts (or twi-hards) criticize screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (who has some obvious talent since she writes for the TV show “Dexter”) for tweaking several details from the book but I certainly don’t envy the task of adapting those awful books (although the fourth one presents outrageously contrived developments that might result in some laugh-out-loud moments).

So, is there a recent example of a good bestseller adaptation? Fortunately yes, there is; case in point, the first adaptation of the Swedish bestselling novel titled “The Men Who Hate Women” by author Stieg Larsson (who unfortunately passed away after completing his trilogy of books). The title of the movie version is “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and it’s one of the most involving detective stories I have ever seen.

Its greatest strength isn’t in its murder mystery spanning several decades (although it’s a fantastic whodunit filled with suspense) but more on the creation of extraordinary and unique characters who command our attention from the get-go. On one side we’ve got Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist facing jail time who accepts the proposal of a rich man (who can’t move past the disappearance of his niece some decades ago), on his last months as a free man. Then there’s Lisbeth Salander, a tattooed Goth chick, who begins investigating Blomkist and ends joining him in solving the case. A relationship develops between them, although Lisbeth remains a mystery (I can imagine she will be further developed in the next installments).

The performances in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” are brilliant (Noomi Raspace definitely deserves an Oscar nomination) and the film is a haunting thriller, not to mention one of the best films of the year. The movie is the first in the Millennium trilogy (since the other two movies were filmed back-to-back they are already available as well). Without a doubt the movie is a prime example of a successful adaptation of a bestseller, Robert Landon could learn a thing or two from Lisbeth.