I disagree with most of what it says about the film, though. I watched the Swedish version years ago and again before the U.S. version was released, and I thought they feminized Salander in the make-up and costume design in ways that didn’t match up with the physically slight, androgynous character in the books and changed her demeanor dramatically in an effort to make her more of a sexy goth dominatrix. She was pleasantly powerful, but I wasn’t buying that anyone believed she was stupid, which is a huge part of the people in Lisbeth’s life misunderstanding and taking advantage of her and key to the point the book makes about how women are targeted. I liked Rapace’s performance a lot, but if differed from the character in the book significantly more than Mara’s and in ways that seemed designed to make her a sexualized femme fatale. It seems really weird to me to accuse the U.S. version of not being true to the character in the book while implying that the Swedish version got it right.

I do think the Swedish film had a much firmer grasp on the Blomqvist character, but that’s a different story.