The Girl in the Spider’s Web Parent Guide

The Girl in the Spider’s Web follows the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) as she accepts a job from fellow Swede, Frans Balder, who is being targeted by a criminal organization known as the Spider Society. Balder tasks Salander with hacking into the USA’s top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) to recover a computer program he created, which he fears may now be dangerous. However, once she becomes involved, Salander finds that Balder is not the only person looking for the program: among the interested parties are an NSA tech trying to recover the lost software, a dangerous gang seeking to sell the program to a mysterious client, Swedish police, and a shadowy figure from Salander’s own past.

As is clear from the grades, this is not what you might call a “family film”. The violence alone, while not necessarily gratuitous, is frequent and occasionally graphic. Blood is shown spraying from gunshot wounds, characters are zapped with tasers and struck with blunt objects, and at least one building explodes. It’s not a slasher flick, but it does get a little messy. The sexual content is another reason sensitive audiences may prefer to avoid this movie. Sexual abuse, while not shown or graphically described, is an important part of the plot and may upset some viewers.

As far as the movie’s artistic merits are concerned, it’s certainly well shot. The dramatic Swedish landscape is brought to the fore in many of the shots and location choices. With many years’ experience of Canadian winters, I can safely assure you that this movie captures what cold looks like. This film isn’t using dehydrated mashed potatoes or shredded paper on a hot set - outdoor shots look genuinely chilly. Indoor sets are cold and impersonal or colorfully lit and unique. The real winner here, however, is the costumes: while admittedly a little over the top, they make the characters instantly recognizable and provide good thematic information.

This film is an adaptation of the fourth installment to the Millennium series, begun by Stieg Larsson and continued by David Lagercrantz, I can’t speak to the faithfulness of this particular production, having stopped my reading at the third book in the series, but I must say that this film gets a little…shark-jumpy. The first book (and associated film adaptation), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, had a narrow scope and focused on the characters’ reactions and emotions rather than grand international drama. The sequels that followed moved increasingly in the latter direction, until we arrive at “The Girl in the Spider’s Web”, which feels not unlike a gritty remake of a Sean Connery era James Bond film. Which isn’t to say it’s not entertaining: it makes for an okay thriller in its own right. But when you stop and consider the emotional weight of earlier installments, this film is just disappointing.

At the end of the day, it’s a decent thriller with some clever design and a solid performance from Claire Foy. While it didn’t manage to spin together a top-quality web of intrigue, it did manage to trap some solid actors. Hopefully the spider is feeling benign and it lets them out again.