The Girl Who Played with Fire

Saturday, June 18 - Sunday, June 19, 2016

Marathon the Millennium Trilogy with a “Cold Cases Trilogy Pass” and get a special discount ticket price of $25 ($15 for members) for all three films! Discount tickets good for trilogy films viewed same day only. Films within a trilogy viewed over multiple days do not qualify. Just select a ticket for the first showing in a trilogy—Sun Jun 19 at 12:25pm—and choose the appropriate $25/$15 ticket type when purchasing online; Trilogy tickets also available at the box office.

35mm print!

“Toning down, though not entirely ditching, the swathes of rough S&M sex that featured in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ – the first movie to be made from Stieg Larsson’s trilogy – this sequel nevertheless drags us back into a world of breadknife-to-the-scrote feminism where sexual violence seldom goes without punishment. And again, it’s worth the price of admission alone to spend time in the company of Sweden’s premiere bisexual emo-sleuth, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), as she gets tangled up in a hackneyed and unlikely plot where she must work out who has framed her for the murder of a journalist on the cusp of exposing a sex-trafficking ring.

The title refers to an incident from Lisbeth’s childhood when she doused her abusive father in petrol and set him ablaze – an event, it transpires, whose consequences she must now face.
Offering less of a cut-and-dried storyline than the first instalment, this film spends its running time carefully arranging the narrative dominoes in order to – hopefully – have them topple in the third and final film (due in November). The only real advantage of seeing ‘Dragon Tattoo’ first is that it gives depth and meaning to Lisbeth’s relationship with ruddy-faced reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), who works tirelessly to clear the name of his erstwhile paramour. Filmed in murky, grainy tones which chime nicely with the squalid demi-monde that Lisbeth is forced to frequent, the film is more sharply focused on fleshing out mood and character than it is supplying rudimentary twists at cosy junctures. Certainly, much of the story is Google-powered, but is that not to be expected from an ace computer hacker? And the debate regarding the film’s feminist credentials is rendered moot at the point where Lisbeth takes down a leering Hell’s Angel with an electric Taser to the trouser area.” –Time Out (London)

Part of the series Cold Cases: The Department Q Trilogy & the New Nordic Noir

  • Country Sweden/Denmark
  • Language In Swedish with English subtitles
  • Year 2009
  • Running Time 129 minutes
  • Director Daniel Alfredson

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.