The Girl Who Played with Fire
Directed by Daniel Alfredson
Sweden & Denmark & Germany, 2009
Cornerhouse, 5 September 2010
Still from The Girl Who Played With Fire
An efficient and effective thriller, brought to you courtesy of the nation that gave you Cirkus Cirkor (see below).
If I have one criticism to make, it is that the film is too much a clone of the standard Hollywood thriller. There is little specifically Swedish flavour and colour. It is all rather characterless, withal, in this respect.
Never doubt, though, that the film will grip your attention. The action is fast-moving and few scenes last long, presenting the actors with the problem of how to establish and convey character. They resort, on the whole, to shorthand: furrowed eyebrows for puzzlement, say. Though this can occasionally create a cartoonish ambience, in the main it is effective.
Noomi Rapace is an exception to the above rule, however, and a great talent. She gives us a young woman who is tortured, feral, vulnerable, driven, uncertain of her identity, desperately in need of friendship and human connection. Now grown, and no longer an abused child, she is determined to root out abuse.
Take yourself along to The Girl Who Played with Fire to see Rapace’s performance. And to see how it all turns out in the end, naturally.
