Ryan McNeil
So you’ve stared down certain doom twice already and lived to tell the tale. You’ve faced the demons of your dark familial tale, and somehow still managed to come out smelling like roses.
Well congratulations – that’s quite a list of accomplishments – but hopefully you don’t think you’re in the clear just yet.
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS’ NEST begins with Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) in the hospital. She is slowly working her way back to health, and is lucky enough to have a doctor looking out for her. He keeps all would-be callers at bay; good and bad alike. He says Salander needs to recover, and in order to do so, she can’t take any visitors…not even the police who have a lot of questions for the girl with the dragon tattoo.
While a case is being built for some of Salander’s actions, there are some in the Swedish government who don’t think a federal case will be effective enough. these government officials believe that if her story comes to light, that their covert activities will be scrutinized, and they just don’t want any part of that. So as if legal trouble isn’t enough for Salander to navigate through, she is handed the added distraction of attempts on her life.
As all of this is happening, her friend Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is hard at work at Millennium Magazine compiling a special issue completely dedicated to her plight. Having gone to hell and back twice with her already, he knows a glimmer of who she really is, and how she became this way. Blomkvist puts himself and the staff of Millennium at great personal risk, by trying to expose the truth about Salander, the government plot, and work it all into the record for the court of public opinion.
As Salander goes on trial for her actions, we’re left to wonder what will ultimately seal her fate: the government conspiracy against her, or Blomkvists quest for the truth?
By this stage, we’ve gone through quite a lot with Lisbeth Salander, and in some ways, it feels like this final act really sums up her character. It’s at this stage where the deck truly seems to be stacked against her. After everything she has gone through, the system still seems poised to lock her up – in jail, or worse, back in psychiatric care. And were it you or I, facing such a fate might easily push us into a state of desperate contrition.
Not Lisbeth.
Befitting the cold isolation we already know of her character, she says little more than absolutely necessary. Despite being probed with endless questions from authorities about her past and present, she remains stoic. She has already trusted the system once by opening up – she’ll be damned if she’s going to do it again. Forget bargaining, depression or acceptance – she’s angry and is content to remain that way.
She then holds up a second middle finger to the man by staying true to her outward demeanour. To look at a girl like Lisbeth, one might think that she’s “a punk”, the sort of punk who invites the trouble she finds herself in. Perhaps some members in our society believe that since she lives outside the margins, she isn’t entitled to the human rights contained within the margins.
But by remaining true to herself, even in the face of punishment by the highest authority, she shows an inner strength that many of us would abandon. Salander’s stoicism and edgy demeanour represents how she lives. She seems to know that her life is what’s up for grabs, and wants to raise a flag that this is her life, so if any version of Salander should stand up to be counted – it’s this version.
Running parallel to Salander’s fight for freedom is the dilemma at Millennium. Erika and Blomkvist are faced with their own tough decision with the question of how long they want to pursue a dangerous truth. Journalism, after all, is supposed to be all about exposing the truth – sometimes a cold, ugly truth. But while truth is a wonderful notion, it often comes at a very high price.
If it were you, and you were working on an exposé detailing a legal matter not directly related to you, how far would you take it? What about if you started to get threatened – are the facts still worth it? Alright, when violence starts knocking at your door? This happens all the time, not just in movies like this. Journalists risk great things to tell us the truth about what’s happening in our world – and in an ironic twist, the truer their story, the greater the personal risk for the journalist telling it.
All of these themes and ideas should make for a wonderful movie. Unfortunately, given how far we’ve come, the conclusion of this trilogy feels a tad toothless. There are no stakes in this final chapter…no uncertain peril that our heroine needs to muscle her way out of. The entire crux of her predicament goes to the only logical conclusion it can. While this endgame provides closure, it also leaves us feeling strangely unsatisfied. Less like kicking of hornet nests…more like trampling of anthills.
Stellar review. Loved how you described Salander. I’m a big fan of Larsson’s story but I agree, Chapter 3 is definitely the weakest.
After watching all three films and reading the first novel, I’m very much of the opinion that Larsson’s story is one solid one thinned out to encompass three chapters.
Thanks for going back and reading!