Craig, Mara fire up thriller

IF you’re a newcomer like Rooney Mara, it’s hard to imagine winning over thespic behemoths like Meryl Streep and Glenn Close in glitzy acting derbies like the Oscars. After all, how do you expect to “silence” Streep in a role—as Margaret Thatcher—that’s as iconic as her reputation as Hollywood’s greatest living actress?

Moreover, Mara’s co-nominees play characters that “beg” for award-worthy consideration and attention: In “Albert Nobbs,” Close is outstanding as a woman who passes herself off as a man in the male-dominated world of 19th century Ireland.

Sass and spirit

In the crowd-pleasing Civil Rights dramedy, “The Help,” Viola Davis subtly but movingly rebels against racial bigotry and social hypocrisy. And, the Golden Globe-winning Michelle Williams “resurrects” the sass and spirit of the legendary Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn.”

But, Mara has one key backer in her corner: David Fincher, who delivers a glossy and self-assured remake of Niels Arden Oplev’s superlative Swedish whodunit, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”:

Before serving his sentence for the libel case he lost, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) grudgingly takes on a financially lucrative, fact-finding mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of a young heiress some 40 years ago.

Backing him up is tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), who’s as influential as he is wealthy—so, the seasoned sleuth has a formidable ally watching his back, right?

Well, that’s not necessarily a guarantee for his safety, because all of Michael’s suspects turn out to be—members of Vanger’s dysfunctional clan!

Helping Blomkvist solve the increasingly confounding puzzle is brilliant techie, Lisbeth Salander, whose sketchy past is even more disturbing than her facial piercings and the huge dragon tattoo on her back.

But, are Michael and Lisbeth willing to risk their lives when the secrets they unravel about Vanger’s family get them too dangerously close to the shockingly salacious truth?

More graphic

The US film industry is fond of “borrowing” well-told cinematic tales from Europe—but, it isn’t often that you see an American adaptation that is gloomier in tone and more graphic in execution than the original.

Fortunately, doom-and-gloom is right up Fincher’s alley—so, the “tweaks” in the exposition, as well as the characters, make his version more believable, “palatable” and empathetic.

Fincher’s “adjustments” work wonders for Mara’s Oscar-nominated portrayal—a superb “vanishing act” that makes Lisbeth’s unarticulated longing for intimacy more heart-breaking to behold, and allows the talented  actress to expose the gruff and goth-coated heroine’s broken, vulnerable interior!