The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

“The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest” is the third and final film adaptation of the best-selling Millennium trilogy written by the late Swedish author, Stieg Larsson. In this last instalment, Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge – against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Lisbeth is a human being who’s suffered a lot. She needed to create her own world, her own set of rules, as the ones that exist haven’t helped her. She’s always been completely alone in her world, outside it she’s been vulnerable. Lisbeth has locked away her emotions, her heart, to protect herself. Everything inside her is deeply rooted, and once she’s let someone in she’s incredibly faithful and loyal. She will fight to the death for what she believes in. All people possess all qualities in different amounts, to differing degrees. For all of the roles that I play, it’s a matter of finding the important element inside me. In Lisbeth, her wounds and vulnerabilities are right to the fore. For me they were much deeper down, I had to emphasize them to be able to portray Lisbeth. (Noomi Rapace)

Noomi Rapace reprises the starring role of the pierced and tattooed genius computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist, the crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, and Lena Endre the editor of the magazine and Blomkvist’s occasional lover. Since his first novel “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was published in Sweden in 2005, the trilogy and the subsequent film adaptations have become major international sensations with around 21 million copies sold in over 40 countries. It is highly unusual for a posthumous work in translation to reach number one on The New York Times bestseller list. To see a posthumous work in translation reach number one around the world is unprecedented. Larsson was a journalist and editor-in-chief at the Swedish magazine Expo as well as one of the world’s leading experts on right wing extremism and Nazi movements. He had previously spent 20 years working at the Swedish news bureau TT. In 2005 he made his debut with the novel “Men Who Hate Women” (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). The Millennium trilogy has won several book awards including; the Glass Key for Nordic Crime Novel of the Year in 2006 and the British Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year in 2009 (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo); the Best Swedish Crime Novel of 2006 (The Girl Who Played With Fire) and the Glass Key for Nordic Crime Novel of the Year in 2008 (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest). Collectively the three film adaptations have generated over $200 million in worldwide box office.

When I heard they were making another remake everybody asked me if I was interested and I always said, “No, I’m finished.” And then when it came out David Fincher was making it everybody came back again and asked, “Are you sure?” and I said, “Yes, I think David Fincher is amazing, but it doesn’t change anything in me.” It was never an option. So it doesn’t bother me at all. I never want to repeat myself. I felt very strongly I was done with her. She had been living in me for a year and a half, so when I was finished I was so finished. It was weird – the last day after the last scene when the producers came out with champagne there was this celebration energy and everyone was happy and all of a sudden I felt, “Oh my gosh, I need to go to the restroom.” I actually started to vomit. I vomited for 40 minutes straight. It was like my body was literally throwing Lisbeth out of my system. In a way it was a relief because it was quite hard to carry her in me for so long and she really took a lot of space in my life. I think everyone around me was quite happy when I was done wit her. (Noomi Rapace, GQ Magazine, November 15, 2011)

“The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest” released Swedish theaters in September 2007 and was released in most European theaters throughout the first half of 2010. By November 2010, it reached the United Kingdom and the USA as well. It didn’t receive the same critical acclaim like its predecessors, but was generally rewarded a worthy conclusion for the trilogy. While Time Out wrote that “a more apt title would be ‘The Girl Who Sat Quietly in a Dimly Lit Room”, Salon wrote that the third film “delivers a rousing, grueling, almost operatically scaled finale to the series”.