The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009). This second installment of the Millennium Trilogy gets a lot of flack, most of which is unfair. It enjoys a new director, which seems a strange choice for a trilogy, but he pulls it off. Of course a new director is going to add a new feel to a trilogy, but many fans unfairly feel that such a change is bad. Huh? Is the new director suddenly to emulate, imitate, or even become someone else? Silliness. The Girl Who Played with Fire stands on its own. It answers many questions from its predecessor without giving up too much. Of course it is Noomi Rapace that owns this film, and probably the whole trilogy. She draws us in to her discomfiting world with an inappropriately attractive force born of emotional pain. Who could not root for such a convoluted character? Nyqvist, her polar compliment and ally, serves as an appropriate counterbalance to Noomi, and what could be a prosaic humdrum becomes a welcomed character that plays his cards above the board. The story unraveled with aplomb, and as the tension builds our hearts go out to the unlikely Gothic heroine. The direction and camera work did their magic without ostentation, allowing the story to unfold without much artistic interruption. The ending was nigh perfect. It came just as we expect the next exciting moment to erupt, earning our subscription to the last installment of the Millennium Trilogy.
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Fate is my mistress, mother of the cruel abomination that is hope.
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