David Fincher Features

Lili’s Pick: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Lanie’s Pick: Se7en

Being that David Fincher is one of our favorite directors, my sister and I would be remiss if we did not feature him on our list. We also had some catching up to do with his filmography: Se7en was new to Lanie, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was new to us both. We were perhaps put-off by TGWTDT due to its infamous rape scene and the fact that the book it’s adapted from is the size of a textbook, but upon finally watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it quickly became one of my favorite Fincher films, if not one of my favorite films of all time. This film has all of the grittiness and anxiety of films like Se7en and Zodiac, combined with the cool, seamless storytelling style of films like The Social Network and Gone Girl. And yet there’s still something entirely unique and special to this film, something as adaptable and awe-striking as Rooney Mara’s acting ability. It feels like Fincher really arrived at the perfect ratio of beauty and brutality with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and that all of his films before were merely practice. I say this as a dedicated stan to David Fincher: this film makes something even as critically-acclaimed and oft-quoted as Se7en just seem messy and unpracticed. I’m not sure what I was expecting before I watched TGWTDT, but the web that untangles between the frames of this film proved to be one of the most shocking and brilliant that I’ve ever seen from David Fincher. It’s the kind of film that, like Se7en, keeps you guessing til the very end—never leaving you time to collect your thoughts before you’re hit with the resolution. It is gripping, relentlessly thrilling, and even now as I revisit my feelings toward this film, I feel the same goosebumps I felt as I watched it for the first time. I love a reliably unpredictable story, and that’s why I love David Fincher.