Wow! Such a good movie.

This is How Movies Should Be Made

An Exercise In Nonsense

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The book in my view is very poorly written-chapter a day formulaic stuff (obviously written by two people) . However the plot, or backstory, as they say these days, is quite interesting.So to make a film of a poor book with a good plot and ignore the plot to the extent that you have no idea why anybody does anything is frankly ludicrous.I love Scandinavian noir so could still enjoy the atmospherics,the cinematography and some of the acting but as a coherent whole forget it.Despite the film having more style than the book I wouldn't recommend this to anyone .

Where to begin? Well, they got it right the first half of the movie. Sort of. After that everything got down hill. I blame in part the director, but mostly the screenwriter has to get the full blow. :-( Paolo messed it up big time. Large and essential parts of the book aren't included in the movie. Which is why the viewer get's the feeling the characters and the story line seems cluttered, kinda superficial and too streamlined. I know it's not easy to trim a book like this into a movie, but this time the screenwriter ruined a potential really good movie.I'd like to point out that (and here come the spoilers:) the main and essential part of the book is the group hypnotherapy led by Erik, the main character. I'm so tempted to say what happens there but I won't. The second major flaw is everything that led up to the start of the ending. You don't get to see or know why and how they ended up on a desolate farm in the countryside. In the book there are several events leading the story up to this place. What bugs me the most are two simple scenes which they stripped and changed completely. They didn't have to. In the movie, the first crime scene is in a gymnasium. In the book however it's in the adjacent wardrobe. The ending scenes...Good grief. They even managed to change McDonalds to a Thai takeaway. Let alone the final scene which is completely different to the book. So - unless you're dyslectic...Just the read book instead!!! Ending this comment, by changing my vote from 3 to 2. But the book gets a 10 from me.

The movie features internationally known actors who perform excellent with the material they have got to work with. I never got to sympathize with any of them though, the script and the way Lasse Hallstrom directs never lets me. There is a fast pace throughout the movie where things just happen without visible motive or any chance of contemplation, which makes it feel erratic at best. All you can do as a watcher is to lean back and disconnect the grey cells.As far as the plot goes, there are huge plot elements missing from the Swedish best selling book of 2009 which in my opinion never was that great to begin with. With the parts that gave the books some depth excluded we are left with a shallow story at most.At least Lena Olins performance elevated the movie a notch, and I believe no other Swedish director than Hallstrom would have been able to provoke the feelings she is showing. The other actors were fair to good, not more not less.I would not recommend this movie even if you have two hours to spare.

This is an excellent performance of the actors. Having read the book helps though as the film can be a bit thin in the storytelling. However that is a worthy sacrifice since the film is reasonably true to the book. The book is quite multi-layered and deep, dark and sinister. What makes this film and the book work is that it lets your imagination flow. I wouldn't say that the plot is too far stretched nor fetched. It is a story both politically relevant and on many levels disclosing the maddening pain involved in losing those nearest to you without being able to do anything about it. The book is like a puzzle. Piece by piece the deepest darkest and very human trauma is revealed with stone cold precision. The weak point in this film and perhaps in the book too is that once the reality behind the trauma is revealed it ends pretty quickly though the ending in itself is really worthy of the book. I am looking forward to any sequels. So far four books in the series and they only get better.