Franklyn tells the tale of the personal struggles of four separate individuals, and how certain events have impacted their lives. I’m not going to review the movie as a whole - I just want to concentrate on one particular aspect of it. 

One of the main characters, David, is a soldier who seems to have suffered from severe psychological trauma as a result of taking part in the conflict in Iraq. While this in itself is a complex and terrible tragedy, what’s even more interesting is the way in which he takes out his illness. David, scarred by certain events in his life, creates an elaborate and spectacular alternate reality that he places himself in. He names himself Jonathan Preest (pictured above), and creates a world called Meanwhile City, into which he places individuals from his real life (his ‘David life’, if you will) and gives them certain roles to play in his fantasy. This is an idea that has also been explored in other films, most notably Shutter Island. The fact that David cannot accept his real life and creates his reality of Jonathan Preest and Meanwhile City is both sad yet brilliant at the same time - the film portrays his world as an infinitely detailed parallel universe. 

David is in pursuit of his father, whom he blames for the death of his younger sister. Jonathan Preest is in pursuit of someone who he calls ‘the individual’. As the film progresses, the two characters of David and Preest intertwine. In the first third of the film, many questions are raised and it can be a little confusing, but gradually everything fits together and all is explained. At one point in the film, Emilia (Eva Green) asks to ‘define real’. The theme of two separate realities and the fact that the very definition of the word ‘real’ can be confused fits in beautifully with the world that David has imagined - something that is totally fantasy to everyone else is very, very real to him. As David, he is Jonathan Preest…not David. 

I’d recommend this film to anyone even with a passing interest in psychology or how the brain works. What I’ve talked about here with these two characters is less than half of the whole plot of the film. 

I’ll spoil this review in my first sentence: it’s the best film I’ve seen all year. I’d been aware of Larsson’s trilogy of novels, and also aware of the Swedish films, but never read or seen them respectively. In fact, it wasn’t a film that I would have chosen to see, if I hadn’t been invited to go watch it. 

So I went into the cinema having done no ‘preparation’, and I was pretty blown away. Usually, crime/thriller films send me to sleep very swiftly; they all follow the same formula. However, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo doesn’t. Sure, the protagonist (portrayed by Daniel Craig) is a detective-like character investigating the mysterious disappearance of a girl, he hunts around for clues which eventually lead him to the killer, but there’s something about the film that makes it alltogether different from your typical Poirot-esque drama. 

One of the things that stood out most for me was the attention to detail paid to the backgrounds of the main characters; a decent portion of the film is devoted to introducing the lifestyle and personality of both main characters Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) and Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). It’s refreshing to see the person behind the detective, rather than simply seeing their ‘calculating’ side. 

The quality of acting was also impressive - Craig fits the gritty nature of the film well, but also can show his soft side well (very 007 indeed). Mara also did the same. One of the other things I noticed was the theme of a split personality, not in a schizophrenic way, but in the way that behind a seemingly friendly and conventional exterior there can often lie a darker, more sinister side to a person. 

I recommend you go see this film, even if you haven’t read the book it’s a damn good film. I’m adding the book to my reading list, and it’ll be interesting to see how it compares. 

on IMDB