Not so much a spider’s web as a huge heavy industrial net

Stars Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, Keith Stanfield.

Stieg Larrson’s now familiar storylines, this one created together with David Lagercrantz, creates a melancholic saga with violence, angst, moody broody people and generally dark sinners who all have a woman on their case – Lisbeth Salander. Already known to Journalist Mikael Blomkuist, Lisbeth is subject of and involved in spying, cybercrminality, and corrupt government officials. Violence ensures.

Lisbeth’s role in this story, which was created by 6 screenwriters, is to mete out justice to rapists, abusers of women and criminals who have wronged her, her sister and her friends. So don’t be surprised if the traps she sets, also armed with a tazer cause gasps and surprise.

The opening of the story is truly memorable where Lisbeth manages to escape the clutches of her predatory and sinister father as a young girl by leaping into snowy mountain slopes out of a window, whilst her sister is left behind to experience suspected rape and abuse for years. Later Lisbeth is told her sister had a self administered end but like in all the best stories, she reappears alive though definitely not well some time down the line in the saga.

Of course one is expected to be given a few doses of “unreal” scenarios and one or two of the explosions and car chases are in there to give the audience what the director thinks they want. The modern audience has been “treated” to so many of these themes cutting through many different genres of film that when people crawl out virtually unhurt of cars that have done a myriad of somersaults and cascaded down banks, they must be thinking that air bags are definitely a good thing.

But now to get serious – why do audiences feel so fixated by these dark and deviously traumatic dramas? I think it is the way they are told and the fact that we have a heroine in Lisbeth who won’t take anything lying down. Her beautiful girlfriend herself is definitely victim of chauvinistic attitudes from Lisbeth but that only serves to make her more human. She is wanted by the police but she wants the police in return.

One wonders how much of these dramas have been drawn from genuine real life stories. Stieg Larrson is no longer alive to tell more tales though they will be documented by others. Just be glad it’s them and not us who are tied up in these traumatic shady Scandinavian sagas and enjoy….

Penny Nair Price