The description of this film was utterly unappealing to me. Anything involving “mystery” or a “punk computer hacker” threatens to lull me to sleep.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo turned out to be one of the most compelling films I have ever seen. It’s in Swedish with subtitles; I have enjoyed a fair number of subtitled films in the past, but this was the first that I was drawn into so quickly that I forgot I was having to read anything.

It is a disturbing film. This is not apparent in the description, but needs to be mentioned. It’s graphic. There are brutal rape scenes. With that said, the film also has one of the strongest female leads. Without giving away too much, there are no attempts to rescue her and she needs nobody’s help anyway.

This film will be playing tonight and Tuesday night at Cinestudio.