The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018)
Directed by Fede Alvarez
Written by Fede Alvarez, Steven Knight
Starring Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, LaKeith Stanfield, Stephen Merchant
Release Date November 9th, 2018
Published November 9th, 2018
The Girl in the Spider’s Web stars Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander, famed hacker and righter of wronged women. Lisbeth has made it her mission to rescue women in trouble and in the opening of the movie we see her hard at work. Lisbeth has infiltrated the home of a rich businessman who has just beaten his wife. The man had been in court just the day before and used his money and influence to skate on charges that he beat up two prostitutes.
Now Lisbeth has come to make him pay for his misdeeds. We see her snare him in a trap, confront him with evidence of his crime and use her hacking skills to steal all of his money and split it between the women he’s abused, including his wife. Lisbeth uses blackmail to keep the man from doing any further harm to his wife and in short order, even if you didn’t already know Lisbeth Salander from her previous efforts as an avenging angel in other movies and books, you know her now.
This opening sequence as crafted by director Fede Alvarez is a terrific study in character building. It cleverly allows us to create in our minds a backstory for Lisbeth without the necessity for dimwitted expository dialogue where characters read to the audience a laundry list of the character’s achievements to establish them in our minds. It’s a great example of show don’t tell, one that I wish the rest of the movie had adhered to.
That’s not to say that The Girl in the Spider’s Web is filled with exposition, the film is quite good about remaining in the moment. There are however, a few of those laundry list scenes that are part of what keeps The Girl in the Spider’s Web from transcending from solidly entertaining suspense flick to something more fully engaging. Had the rest of the movie more closely resembled the off-kilter and brilliantly smart opening section, we could be talking about one of the better movies of the year.
The story goes that Lisbeth Salander has been hired by a client, played by Stephen Marchant, to retrieve a computer program he created for the American government. To get it, Lisbeth will have to hack the National Security Administration and do it from halfway round the globe. This, as you can imagine from the talent she’s already displayed, will not be her biggest challenge.
The hack goes off without a hitch but someone has caught wind of what Lisbeth is up to and aims to interfere. An organization that we come to know as The Spiders, wants that computer program and they will do everything short of killing Lisbeth in order to get it. But why not kill her? That appears to be a major flaw in the movie until you get to the reveal that the organization is merely an elaborate revenge ruse perpetrated by someone from Lisbeth’s past with an aim toward a revenge better served if Lisbeth is alive to see it.
I’m being very generous in my description of the plot. It’s not quite as elaborate as I may have made it seem. That is because the trailers for The Girl in the Spider’s Web ruined much of the most suspenseful part of this movie. I won’t be specific so as not to spoil things for those who’ve managed to miss the film’s two trailers. I will only say that I can imagine the movie playing in a more exciting fashion if I did not have the information from the trailer that is played as a twisty reveal in the movie.
The trailers are part of the reason why I only like The Girl in the Spider’s Web and not love it. I want to love it, I definitely love Claire Foy whose performance is riveting throughout. Foy is a brilliant actress of great instinct and intelligence. Her Lisbeth easily rivals Noomi Rapace’s original Lisbeth in 2009 and Rooney Mara’s slightly watered down Lisbeth in 2012.
Foy crafts an angry, injured, but fierce character of great intelligence and ingenuity. Lisbeth could easily be a reductive caricature in the wrong hands. Some have called Lisbeth a goth version of James Bond minus the spy schtick. That’s not entirely unfair, in a commercial sense, I am sure Sony might embrace such simple, digestible distillation of the character. But Claire Foy makes Lisbeth so much more than that with her subtle and nuanced touches.
Equally strong is Lakeith Stanfield whose Edwin is one of the more original takes on an American spy we’ve seen in a movie, mostly because Stanfield is not the typical kind of actor who is chosen for such a role. Stanfield’s unique energy, part geek, part badass, makes for a wholly original character and Stanfield plays Edwin on his own, very unique vibe. Had it not, again, been for the trailer spoiling the nature of his character, this role could have been even more exciting and intriguing.
I really like and I do recommend The Girl in the Spider’s Web. The trailers do drain some of the suspense but what’s left is still strong enough for me to recommend it. I could offer a few other quibbles like the charisma free performance of the actor portraying Mikael Blomqvist, the pivotal co-star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the laundry list scene that introduces Stanfield’s Edwin, but they don’t ruin the movie.
I do want to call attention to one other scene however. There is a scene near the end of The Girl in the Spider’s Web that is, to employ a pun only funny once you see the movie, breathtaking. You’ve seen a glimpse of this scene in the trailer but the actual, full length scene in the movie is nearly as strong as that opening scene I mentioned before. In terms of visceral effects, the scene is actually superior but that could be just because it tapped a very specific fear I have regarding breathing.
