So this is a very modern take on The Scarlet Letter, the classic novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Our heroine is a pretty girl in high school who lives under the radar getting on with her life until she is one day, whilst in the bathroom, sarcastically telling her friend of a supposed escapade she had over the weekend. Her girlfriend who is none too bright doesn’t get the tone of her friend’s monologue and assumes it is all true. Not only that but the class goody two shoes is in one of the stalls and hears the entire conversation. News spreads like wildfire in high school, especially juicy news. In one day she goes from being completely unknown to a popular but morally loose girl. One of her teachers, played by Thomas Haden Church, is concerned about her taking on the role a little too seriously especially when she starts wearing a red A on her clothing.

Her parents are fabulous and inject enough humour as well as concern to make them not only believable but also extremely likeable. There is the typical break up of a friendship due to misunderstanding, a boy who really does like her and the emptiness that goes with not being liked for who she really is when she comes up with a great idea. Start a video blog explaining how it all went wrong. The film moves quickly and has enough in it to make it not just a teen movie. There is a whole other story line involving the ‘good’ girl and her church group that meets regularly on campus and prays for the other students whilst simultaneously assassinating their characters which brings us full circle to the Scarlet Letter and its puritanical ways. How hard it is to walk the walk and talk the talk especially when it is so much fun dishing on others.

A Swedish movie and so therefore subtitled. This is a marvelous production and covered most of the main story lines in the book. Once you get into the swing of reading the lines, unless you are conversant in Swedish, you can settle in and enjoy the show. I wondered how they were ever going to choose an actress to play the lead. She is described in the book as an extraordinary looking female but the actress who plays her does a great job. She is not quite as remote and antisocial as described but that would be almost impossible to translate into a film. Consumer alert – this is not a movie for kids! There are a couple of quite disturbing scenes involving the heroine. I must say that the casting was good all around.

The movie does not touch on a couple of relationships that are quite prominent in the books but maybe they are just going to leave them out of the movies altogether. I am assuming the powers that be are going to be filming ‘Played with Fire’ and ‘Hornet’s Nest’. This film is a story unto itself but there are a couple of threads that take you through the trilogy. We meet all our main characters and get into the story of a 40 year old mystery immediately. That is not the case with the book but I encourage you to persevere if you are reading it – it is well worth the first 100 pages of background. A journalist is hired by a wealthy, elderly man in a remote part of Sweden to sort out the mystery of his niece who disappeared about 40 years previously. Her body was never found and he just is looking for some closure. He never had children himself and took his brother’s kids under his wing. There is a history of white supremacy, Nazi sympathizers and familial hatred which help give the story some interesting twists. The journalist enlists the help of the girl with the dragon tattoo who, along with some hacking friends, helps to solve this mystery once and for all. The way the movie is shot never gives you time to get even remotely bored and sad when it comes to an end.