The challenge she faced in taking on the role is multifaceted. Not only did she have to play a tremendously popular character borne of a literary phenomenon (a task as difficult as any for an actor given the level of expectation and familiarity audiences have for the subject); she had to live up to Noomi Rapace’s definitive immortalization of Salander from the Swedish adaptations of Steig Larson’s Millennium Trilogy. Mara had to analyze all previous incarnations of the troubled hacker heroine and incorporate the necessary traits from each iteration into her own depiction while finding other unexplored qualities to use so that she could make her Lisbeth unique for the uninitiated and the well-acquainted alike. In summation it sounds simple, but when you’re dealing with a figure as complex as Salander, it’s a daunting task.
Beyond the difficulties of extracting the internal qualities of the character, the physical aspect of the job was undoubtedly most taxing for the 26-year-old actress. Mara, a beautiful but natural looking girl, had to drastically alter her appearance to embody Salander. She cut her hair and pierced her eyebrows, ears and nipples to give fans the Girl they knew and loved. She bared all through nearly half the film in love scenes with men and women, and dramatized one of the most traumatic experiences a lady can endure in a brutal and harrowing sequence the likes of which you cannot prepare for. She also learned to ride a motorcycle and kick ass, which she does plenty of in the film’s two-and-a-half hour runtime. Coupled with the emotional and psychological intensity of the character – which she communicates through body language, facial expressions and guttural shrieks that would make the Nazgul cringe – it’s perhaps the most fully realized representation of a fictional figure that filmgoers have seen in 2011.
But what’s the real accomplishment here? What has Mara’s performance offered that none of the other actresses’ work has rewarded audiences?
Individuality. Sure, Glenn Close’s role as Albert Nobbs is one-of-a-kind, but the character is hiding in his/her own skin. Mara, as Salander, is at peace with who and what she is (even though she’s often at war with others).
Self-reliance. While The Help’s Viola Davis is determined as Aibileen Clark, her survival and success is dependent on the aid of others.
For all of these qualities, and others, I’ll be rooting for Rooney this season.
'The Darkest Hour' is tiring, dumb
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella
Director: Chris Gorak
Tired of wreaking havoc in New York and Los Angeles (really, how many more CGI shots must we see of a deserted Times Square or a ravaged Staples Center?), aliens set their sights on Moscow in 'The Darkest Hour', a new end-of-the-world thriller that's as much fun to watch as a 90-minute ultrasound video.
Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella play buddies who travel to the Russian capital looking for funding for a new social media service they've invented, but find out early on that their idea's been hijacked by a would-be partner.
Incidentally this is the second time in two years Minghella's playing the same part; remember he was in 'The Social Network' playing the Indian guy who came up with the original idea for Facebook with the Winklevoss twins?
While drowning their sorrows at a local bar, they befriend two female tourists (played by Olivia Thirlby and Rachel Taylor), when suddenly a blackout strikes the city. Pretty soon countless floating, sparkly orbs descend from the sky, soaking up all electricity and turning anything and anyone that comes in their way into a pile of dust.
What follows is a dull adventure in which the foursome must desperately try to stay alive, and even defeat the enemy, while struggling to make their way to the American embassy through what resembles a war-torn wasteland.
The film's single smart idea is that it's about humans fighting semi-invisible aliens – an enemy they can't really see – but instead of playing on that paranoia and treating it as a struggle for survival, the filmmakers quickly turn it into a saga of courage and bravado, which simply isn't as much fun.
The film's special effects are inconsistent, there are no performances to speak of, and the dialogue is particularly cheesy. More than half the film unfolds in the dark, which gets tiring after a point, and the characters themselves are so dumb, you really couldn't care less if they make it to safety in the end or not.
I'm going with one out of five for 'The Darkest Hour'. It packs few thrills and barely any scares. No reason you should waste your time or money.
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