Recasting 2011 (supporting): "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

For anyone familiar with this David Fincher film, they're probably wondering "what the hell part would Meryl play?" This is a similar scenario to my 1987 choice for this project, where fans of Empire of the Sun might have scratched their heads before reading the post. Like that one, however, I have my role and I have my reasons. 

First and foremost, I absolutely love the English-language film version of Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've loved it from the first time I saw it during the same awards season in which Meryl won her third Oscar for The Iron Lady. Rooney Mara was up for the award in the same category. While the film's content is a bit raw and brutal at times, its overall feel and cinematography bring me back to it time and time again, especially during the cold, snowy months Minnesota is known for. 

Set in Stockholm in 2006, the film centers around Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), who's tasked by an old rich businessman, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), to solve the murder of his grandniece. It's this part of Harriet Vanger for which I'd recast Meryl. The apparent murder took place forty years prior to the film's contemporary story, and Rooney Mara's character, Lisbeth Salander, serves as the brilliant assistant to Blomkvist, after having compiled the background check on him for Vanger. 

One of the first questions in my mind when deciding whether or not Meryl would be age-appropriate for this role was the actual timing of the story. Considering that that actress who originally played the adult version of Harriet (Jolie Richardson) is sixteen years younger than Meryl, it might seem strange and inaccurate to cast someone that much older. But I'd argue that Richardson's casting is far more peculiar when one understands the timeline of the story. Harriet is meant to have disappeared in 1966 at the age of 16, which would mean she was born around 1950. The movie takes place in 2006, which would put Harriet at 56 years of age. Richardson would've been 45 at the time of filming. Meryl, 61. Meryl would've had zero problem convincingly portraying someone five years younger, so it actually would've been more authentic to have someone closer to her age. 

As I mentioned at the very beginning of this project, a handful of roles I selected might be considered glorified cameos. This is one of those instances. But the role is a more interesting one than most might consider. And had Meryl actually done Panic Room with David Fincher as I had proposed for my lead recasting project, it wouldn't have been too strange to picture her being tapped for a small role in a future film of his. 

The role of Harriet actually starts out as supposedly a different character, namely Harriet's cousin, Anita. But (spoiler), it ends up turning out that Harriet has been posing as Anita for many years to protect her own identity, after escaping the abuse of both her father and her brother. There could have been some fun challenges with this. Not only is there a role for the actor to play, but to some extent the character is having to act within the story herself. 

I have to add that the actor they cast to portray 16 year-old Harriet looks a fair bit more like Meryl than like Richardson:

I read an article a while back where David Fincher explained his deliberate intention of having his cast use European accents. It might seem a little weird when it's a hodgepodge of voices from different areas, but the overall effect of it simply feeling "European" was likely achieved. That said, I totally expect that Meryl would've chosen to do some variation of a Swedish accent, as did Mara and Plummer. Craig and Richardson just sounded English, which is fine. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was well-received by critics, with an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 71 on Metacritic. The film's violence and overt scenes of sex and sexual trauma probably turned off a handful of both critics and audience members, but in general the movie was praised. In addition to Mara's nomination for Actress in a Leading Role, the film garnered Academy Award nominations in four other tech categories, winning for Best Film Editing. I think the movie holds up well to this day, as mentioned above I've returned to it on a regular basis, and I expect to continue to do so.