The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Actress Noomi Rapace takes the silver screen this November for the U.S. release of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third movie in the best-selling Millennium trilogy written by the late Swedish author, Stieg Larsson. Reprising her role as tattooed computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, Rapace gives a powerful understated performance as a troubled genius fighting to clear her name in a series of murders perpetrated by her estranged father, a cruel Soviet-era spy protected by a secret faction of the Swedish government.

Where the first movie, The Girl with the Golden Tattoo had the feel of intrigue and noir, and the second, The Girl Who Played with Fire, was much more of an action film, the third finds a nice balance of the two. The film opens in a gore-fest, with a bloodied Salander lying in a hospital, fighting for her life as bullets are pulled from her body.

Reticent with good reason

Through her memories, we see the recap of the end of the second film, when Salander's father, Zalachenko, shoots her in the head and tosses her in a shallow pit. Covered in gore and dirt, Salander literally rises from the grave to bury the hatchet-in her father's skull. (He survives.)

Unfortunately, Salander's Frankenstein-freaky half-brother Ronald Neidermann quickly kills the cops sent to detain him after his initial capture (and ample warnings) by crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). As the giant lies in wait to finish Salander, Blomkvist races against the clock to save her life before she is moved to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders.

With the help of his attorney sister, Annika Giannini (Annika Hallin) and a sympathetic doctor who brings Salander a hand-held computer, Blomkvist manages to delve deep into the history of the Section. This super-secret government institution has shielded Zala from scrutiny, in part by institutionalizing the young Salander and stripping her of her civil rights (obviously a much bigger deal in Sweden than in our Patriot Act-era society).

Fortunately for Salander, Section leader Evert Gullberg (Hans Alfredson) has called in a final debt from dying agent Fredrik Clinton to put a bullet through the head of recuperating Zala, who has threatened to expose the organization. Also fortunate for Salander, she and Giannini manage to barricade themselves in the hospital restroom before the same fate can befall her. Still, Salander's broad smile upon hearing of her father's fate is priceless.

The smiles end when Salander's childhood doctor, Peter Teleborian (Anders Ahlbom Rosendahl) forces his way in, to serve as the judge of her mental health. Whereas the film's other bad guys -- Zala, Neidermann, and a rotating cast of scruffy bikers and hit men-look evil, Teleborian's innocuous visage belies his dark core. This makes it even more satisfying when he eventually gets his comeuppance for his fraudulent psych evaluations and a cache of more than 8,000 photos of child pornography found on his computer-discovered with the help of Salander's hacker buddy, Plague.

With the years of abuse at the hands of Zala, Teleborian, and then, the brutal rapes by her custodian, Nils Bjurman, it is no wonder that Salander is guarded, reticent, and contemptuous of authority figures.

"In Lisbeth, her wounds and vulnerabilities are right to the fore," said Rapace of her character. "For me they were much deeper down, I had to emphasize them to be able to portray Lisbeth."

Because Salander spends most of the film clad in a hospital nightgown, when she is finally released to court and appears in her full punk regalia, leather clad and suitably studded, the impact is substantial. With Advokat Giannini's help, Salander is able to tell her story, bring the evidence to light, and get the murder charges against her dismissed.

The film hews closely to the book, although it glosses over the sexual relationship between Blomkvist and butchy detective Monica Figuerola (Mirja Turestedt). And in the final scenes, when Salander faces down her brother in an abandoned brick factory, the murky pit is shown, but not the bodies of the dead Russian girls floating within.

Still, she defeats her nemesis by immobilizing his feet to the floor with a nail gun, and although she hates him, does not murder him. Instead, she calls the burly bikers whose friends Neidermann has killed and informs them of his whereabouts. She also calls the police to the factory-but not before and lets the bikers enact justice. As the book notes, "The story that had begun on the day she was born had ended at the brickworks. She was free."

After a satisfying two and a half hours, the movie's end is puzzling. When Blomkvist finally comes to visit Salander and tell her about Neidermann's death, they exchange a quick set of pleasantries, part ways, and the credits roll. The effect is quite disconcerting, especially when compared to Larsson's final sentence, "She opened the door wide and let him into her life again."

While these changes may be a natural casualty of the screenwriting process, there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding changes made to Larsson's manuscripts, which went to his estranged father and brother after his death at the age of 50. Although Larsson lived with his long-time partner Eva Gabrielsson, because the two never married (a security risk for the journalist, who had received death threats) royalties from his books went to his relatives. They also requested rights to control his work, including a fourth nearly completed but unpublished manuscript.

This situation leaves a bad taste in the mouth, largely due to how closely it mirrors the way that unmarried gay partners are often treated by their partner's blood relatives. Notwithstanding, the Millennium trilogy is undisputedly an addictive read, evidenced by 21 million copies sold in more than 40 countries. A fourth book would be welcome; for now, U.S. fans tired of reading all those pesky Swedish subtitles can look forward to a U.S. remake of the film to be released by Sony in December 2011, starring newcomer Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. (Mara is currently seen briefly, if memorably, in the opening scene of The Social Network where she plays Mark Zuckerberg's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend.)