LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 13: Claire Foy attends the Virgin TV British Academy Television Awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall on May 13, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo credit should read Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Claire Foy is the perfect Lisbeth in ‘The Girl in the Spider’s Web’ trailer
‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ sequel doesn’t quite match the pedigree of the original, but it’s at least doing right by Lisbeth Salander.
It’s been almost seven years since David Fincher’s American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hit theaters to solid reviews and decent-if-not-spectacular box office returns.
The best part of that film by far was Rooney Mara’s performance as Lisbeth Salander, the titular girl with the titular tattoo. This may sound blasphemous, but she was robbed of a 2012 Best Actress Oscar by some small-time actress named Meryl Streep playing some obscure historical figure named Margaret Thatcher.
Based on the first trailer for its sequel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, it seems like director Fede Alvarez is doing his best Fincher impression (which, good luck) and, more importantly, Claire Foy is going to be a fantastic new Lisbeth.
Mara was famously cast as Lisbeth almost purely based on her ability to handle Aaron Sorkin dialogue in the opening scene of Fincher’s The Social Network. She also happened to be the perfect size to play the petite yet terrifying anti-heroine of Stieg Larsson’s trilogy of Millennium novels.
Foy comes into the role with a much more impressive IMDb page than Mara had at this point in her career, having spent a few seasons playing Queen Elizabeth on Netflix’s The Crown and a starring role in Steven Soderbergh horror movie Unsane. Eat your heart out, Meryl.
The trailer is setting Foy’s Lisbeth up as “the righter of wrongs” and “the girl who hurts men who hurt women,” which she will of course live up to in her own extremely violent way. That last moniker is exemplified in a 1:30-long sequence where Lisbeth brutalizes a man who had been abusing his wife that is reminiscent of her taking revenge on her rapist in the first film.
The rest of the supporting cast isn’t featured heavily in the trailer, but it will include Swedish actor Sverrir Gudnason as Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig in the first film), and Lakeith Stanfield (Darius in Atlanta), Vicky Krieps (Alma in Phantom Thread) and Stephen Merchant (Caliban in Logan) in unspecified roles.
The big question is how much of Fincher’s vibe from Dragon Tattoo Alvarez can capture. He should be a solid choice based on his previous work in the horror genre, particularly the claustrophobic Don’t Breathe that proves he can handle psychological torture.
The only sure bet here is Foy, who will definitely do Mara’s Lisbeth justice. We’ll find out if that prediction comes to pass when The Girl in the Spider’s Web is released on Nov. 9.
