Hello everyone and welcome to the Every Movie Ever podcast. My name is Ben Gross.
And my name is Rob Macfarlane. Welcome to the show, a movie podcast slash mental health
check-in for two broken brained best friends talking around their problems, but not about
their problems. Never.
Whilst last minute movies. So Ben, before we get to what we're doing, just briefly,
let's ask the more important question. How are you doing, bud?
I'm a bit ill. I've got spicy eyes and the back of the nose and throat is like prickly.
That's upsetting. I've got a bit of grey brain and I don't know why, man.
And you say a bit of grey brain, you've been an absolute bastard to me for the whole week.
I've just been like, what about this? And you're like, yeah, could do. I mean, what's it matter?
What does anything matter? You don't.
That's not what I've been saying at all. I've been saying love you every night and I rarely
get one back and that's very upsetting.
That's just because I'm, yeah, that is bad and I'm trying to work on that. It's not because
I don't feel it. It's just because I see it and I'm like, oh, he's gone.
Let's work on it now. I love you.
Love you. I love you.
All right.
For new listeners, we're not a couple. We're just best mates, but yeah, I love you, dude.
Man wives.
Honestly though, I've got nothing to grumble about. I'm really happy in my jobs. I'm really
happy at home. I'm happy seeing all my family. This weekend was mint. We just had the quiz
at the boardroom gaming cafe. That went incredible.
That did go really well.
Yeah. I've got nothing to grumble about. I'm just being a mopey bellend.
Could it be that you've got nothing to grumble about and that is really upsetting because
you love a grumble.
I love a grumble.
And maybe, maybe now that there's nothing to grumble about.
Yeah.
You're not dating Hitler. You're not working in hell. You haven't got a collapsed lung.
And so what you've got left, all you've got left is yourself and you're still not happy.
And you're just going, ah, I can't blame her. I can't blame the job. I can't blame my lung.
I can't blame this. It's just me.
Yeah. I'm just a dick. I get all of my fun stuff from negative situations that I'm in
and I'm like, yeah, but isn't this hilarious?
Right.
As a way of dealing with it. But then when there's nothing to deal with, I'm like, where's
my, where's my car?
You're alone. You're alone in the room with yourself. Just going, Oh God, the problem
has always and will always be me.
Oh God, this is lovely. What a lovely time I'm having. This green tea is delicious. I'm
healthy. Let's watch a very entertaining film. Yeah, great. All right. I've got friends around
me that love and support me no matter what. All right. Brilliant.
It's heartbreaking.
It's horror. I don't understand it, man. Brains make no sense to me. Humans are messed up
weird animals.
It's almost like you've got depression.
How are you buddy?
Yeah. I find this time of the year hard. I always look back on the year and I'm like,
what have I achieved? What's changed? I've caught myself as well. Cause last year, I
think, year 2023, we covered Nolan and that did gangbusters. We went from a small show
to a low end of medium show and I was like, wow.
Lower middle class show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and I was like, Oh, that's exciting.
And then it died off and we're like, that's fine. That's fine. Cause next time, next,
next little bounce we get, it will be an order of magnitude bigger. Cause we're now bigger
than we were. And I've just been waiting all year and it hasn't happened. And we've had
a couple of things. We'll get into it. We'll get into it. I'm in a reflective place and
I'm like, what, what, what have we achieved this year? We achieved anything?
Maybe that's what I need to look at. You know what I mean? Maybe I need to start being more
reflective. Maybe that's where the comedy is hiding. Yeah. I'd make a hundred percent.
Now Ben, not everyone likes everything. They don't blue cheese, the offspring offspring
of mint breast implants.
No, they're not. And breast. Yeah. Fine. Pineapple on pizza. Pineapple. There you go. There we
go. So if you, if you, dear listener here is cried pineapple, just a short bit of the
chat that might not be to everyone's taste and is less about the film than say a brand
new listener might need, but not to worry. The full spicy Hawaiian version of every episode
is available over on Patreon days beforehand with all the pineapple you could ever want
for just a pound a month. It's a quid. It's literally a quid. Right. Likewise, our potty
mouths are going to be censored in this version. You can hear all the bad words you like over
on Patreon. Like poopoo caca wee wee. Like there it is. That's what I'm saying is that
that's one of your favorite bits of the show. It doesn't matter what we're talking about.
No matter how cinematic GM we bring, you just saw, I'm going to say, I'm going to say the
C word and it's going to be great. It's brightened my day. What are we doing? What are we doing
this week? We're tuning back into the David Fincher verse with my dear baby faced angel,
the girl with the dragon tattoo. Why are we doing this Rob? Is it just because we're covering
every Fincher movie ever? Yeah. Yeah. Partly that, but also for various reasons, like I
mentioned earlier, we're sitting on a bunch of stuff that has not happened in the timeframe
that we'd hoped. Yeah. A bunch of stuff that fell flat on its face. This week's reel that
we were both quite excited about. So it seemed by about 12 people liked by none of them.
It's about two hours worth of editing those. Right. Yeah. And it's kind of, I'm in a little
bit, I'm a little bit of like a, are we, are we failing at this? Now I'm sure you dear
listener I've got some stuff going on that feels like it's failing. It's winter. It's
getting, it's drawing in the years coming to a close. The evenings are getting shorter.
It's dark at 3 PM. Everyone's failing at everything. You know what I mean? And like we're all,
in Fincher's career, I would argue there is no bigger failure than this trilogy of films.
Cause Alien 3 is divisive, sure. But it's also his first film. It's also objectively
sh**. It's brilliant. It's my favorite Alien movie, but like you can, you can forgive him
having a trip and a stumble, especially with everything we covered when we covered Alien
3, everything going on. But this is Fincher at his creative peak. He is king of the mountain.
It's an incredible cast and it's an adaptation of one of the most popular books in the world
at the time. And of the three planned films, this is the only one that exists. So in an
attempt to make us feel better and hopefully you dear listener feel better, we're going
to talk about how Fincher dealt with this failure or like her boss. Dealing with failure
101, Fincher school. Okay. And Fincher famously has struggled with this in the past. Yeah,
exactly. So we've got a lot to get into this week. Fincher's MCU alternative. The multiple
subplots of this complex film and how they all point us to the loneliest place on the
planet. Rooney Mara's insanity. Why David Fincher makes Benjamin Kenneth Groves very
nervous. Not Kenneth. He's stopped denying. And how the failure of this movie might be
the help that we all need. But before we get into all that, Ben, there's a very important
question we need to ask. Where that man been? Where Fincher at? How Fincher are? Right.
Well, it's an interesting one because we covered the social network not too long ago. We did.
That came out in spring of 2010. This was released in December of 2011. Oh Jesus. Oh
whoa. That's fast. Okay. Yeah. For a Fincher film, that's fast. He was finishing up the
social network and ramping up production on this. There was a huge crossover between the
two, but he's not sat and had a rest. Let's put it that way. Ben, remind us what was going
on in 2011. Let me take you back, my dear boy. Come join me. Come sit next to Papa Ben.
Making it weird. The sleigh of mystery. Let's take a sonder. It's 2011. I hate this. It's
2011. The Southern hemisphere gets a bad case of the shakes. Leads to a near total destruction
of Christchurch, New Zealand. I did not think that you were going to take it this way. Fair.
And the birth of this timelines Godzilla in Fukushima, Japan. Wow. Come on. It was a shaky
quakey time. Half the world got Parkinson's. How else was I supposed to put it? That's
the other route I was going to go down. Yeah. No, it's good. That's good. The end of tuna
could have been another one. Also is tuna fixed now? Cause I remember like after Fukushima,
we couldn't eat tuna anymore. Sorry. Sorry. Can't eat what? Tuna. Tuna. Tuna. Are you
American? What do you mean? Tuna. Tuna? Yeah. All right. Fine. Tuna. Tuna. I've always
called it tuna. Okay. All right. Okay. Now the shoes on the other foot. How the turns
table. I know why I do this. I used to call it, I called it tuna in Japan once and the
word for kiss in Japanese is chew. And it's like quite cutesy. Maybe you said the piss
out of me being sort of like, stop trying to sound cute. Just say Tuesday. And I'm like,
yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. My bad. I know we're British mates. Tuesday. Tuesday.
It's tuna. You're not spitting. He's a can of tuna. I'll stick it on me. Lambo. Dislocate
your bottom jaw. Throw the top teeth out. That's how you pronounce a Tuesday. Yeah,
exactly. It's 2011 my dear boy. The world rejoices as we finally rid ourselves of some
truly awful people. Bin Laden, Gaddafi and the news of the world all get what they deserve.
I love that you laughed at your own joke. It was your delivery. And they are mourned
by no one. It's 2011 my dear boy. Self-confessed warlock Charlie Sheen is by winning on Tiger
Blood. Yeah. To quote the man himself. The run he is on makes Sinatra, Jagger, Richards,
all of them look like droopy eyed harmless children. What a quote. Honestly, that interview
is one of my favourite pieces of media that exists. The guy's a fucking legend. He really
is. I love him so much. It's 2011 my dear boy. And David Fincher is given 90 million
to make the girl with the dragon tattoo. 90 million. Yeah. 90 mil. It's a cool 90 mil.
That's impressive. I guess Sweden. Expensive, right? Well, we'll get into why Sweden's expensive.
But before we do, for those of you that haven't seen this film in a long while and want a
bit of a refresher so you know what the hell we're talking about later in the episode,
or those of you who've got no plans on seeing this film, we just want to hang out with us.
We're going to give you a quick little breakdown of what happens in the movie. Consider it
a spoiler warning. This film's been out a while and we're going to tell you exactly
what happens. It's only two minutes, but it's kind of important to what we've got going
on later, right? You've had 14 years to watch a film. Are you really going to spoil it for
two minutes? You know what I mean? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Just play the jingle. Journalist Michael
Blomfist faces a career crisis after losing a libel case against a powerful businessman,
Vennerstrom. Shortly after he is approached by Henrik Vanger, the head of a wealthy Swedish
family with an unusual request to investigate the decades old disappearance of Henrik's
niece Harriet, who vanished from the family estate in 1966. Henrik believes a member of
his family is responsible and offers Michael both payment and information that could help
him take revenge on Vennerstrom. He's at his career ruined by a guy who probably did it,
but there's no proof he's did it. And this, this old dude's been like, a member of my
family definitely killed my niece. And what's more than that? The killer sends me a pressed
flower every year to taunt me that I know that she was murdered and it has to be someone
on this little island, this little family island. It has to be my family member. Find
out and I'll give you the goods on your man, Vennerstrom. Michael moves to the remote Vanger
estate and begins unraveling the complex web of family relationships. With little progress
made, he enlists the help of Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant hacker with a troubled past who
had previously investigated him for Henrik. Together, they uncover a series of brutal
murders spanning decades, all connected to Bible verses. The investigation points to
Martin Vanger, Henrik's nephew, as the perpetrator and Michael confronts him. Martin captures
and tortures Michael, but is stopped by Lisbeth, who rescues him in a violent shutdown, shutdown,
in a violent showdown. F**k my life. Martin flees and dies in a car crash during his escape.
The pair continues digging and discovers that Harriet is alive, living under a new identity
in London. She reveals her disappearance was an escape from her abusive brother Martin
and her father, who had also subjected her to years of violence. With Harriet's help,
Michael brings closure to the Vanger family mystery. Meanwhile, Lisbeth uses her skills
to gather evidence against Vennerstrom, helping Michael publish a damning exposé that restores
his reputation. The film concludes with Lisbeth preparing to express her feelings for Michael,
but she finds him reconnecting with his old flame, Erica Berger. Is Berger her real last
name? Berger. Oh yeah, makes sense. Finds him reconnecting with his old flame, Erica
Berger. I prefer Berger. Heartbroken, she discards the gift she had planned to give
him and rides away on her Michael cycle. Oh my God, Ben. And rides away on her motorcycle,
leaving Michael unaware of her departure. That was a nightmare. I apologise. So given
that this is the first of a trilogy and you know, we're all excited to see where it leads.
Ha ha. Yeah. More fool us. When did you first watch this film? What was your thoughts? What
was your feelings? Okay. Because this wasn't one you dug in it. This is, this is one that
I'm like, I was dug in in. I was like, mmm, we chomp on this as soon as it came out because
Nine Inch Nails did the soundtrack. Also this was, this was a first time watch for you.
Yeah, exactly. All me. So I've not watched this because it was a popular book and I'm
like, meh. Right. Meh. You know what I mean? Like I've been tricked into this before. I
watched Harry Potter in the cinema. I'm not falling for this again. So I ignored it. Right.
Okay. I forgot it existed. And then, uh, we did the Fincher series. Yeah. And you were
like, next week is the girl with the dragon tattoo. And I was like, yeah, Min. So great.
I left it until two days ago to watch it. How'd you find it? Probably the most harrowing
three hours I've spent in a long time, especially with a little bit of gray brain. Yeah. Like
just here's a little, a little flash warning for anyone. Anyone that's having like not
an off day, but you know, just sort of like a meh kind of day. Yeah. Gray brain. Gray
brain. Just, just don't watch girl with a dragon tattoo. No, that's not, that shouldn't
be your go-to. If it is get help, medical help immediately, professional help, because
step brothers exists. You know what I mean? Anything else exists. Just watch anything
else. I watched it. I loved it. I hated it. It was aggressively, aggressively cynical
and dark, cynical, torturous, mean-spirited. And just, there is some elements of evil that
are in this film that are so hard to comprehend in the moment that it's happening because
it's such, it's such a well-paced film. It doesn't dwell on the evil too long. It kind
of, it snap happens and then you have to deal with it whilst processing the rest of stuff
that's going on as the characters would have to in their normal day-to-day lives. Yeah.
And the way that it's done is genius, but awful because it just leaves you, it leaves
you hanging like what? Oh, no, I don't want to see grocery shopping now. I don't want
to see this. Right. But they've got to do it. They need milk. It's incredible. The way
that it's done is, is literally, this is probably up to date to date. This is Finch's best film
by, by a long shot. In his catalog. I would agree. I would buy a long shot. It is a, it
is a perfection of the serial killer mystery thriller that he has been working on since
seven. It's seven. There's an interesting, this, I wasn't meant to be talking about this,
total tangent, but Finch's early career is really hot. Yeah. And his late career is really
cold. Yes. And for me, this is his coldest, like fight club and seven, it's all dirt and
bright colors and like vivid greens and vivid pinks and fast edits and like up, up tempo
soundtracks be like, Oh, it's so nighties and tubular and extreme. Did you just say
tubular? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's lean into it. Yeah. Sorry. I just, I've never heard
you say that word in 18 years of knowing you. That's incredible. It's not the nighties anymore.
No one says tubular anymore. I was using it as a, as an era signifier. I'm going to make
that my ring tune. You know what I mean? That's going to be my ringtone for the rest of my
life. It's your ring tuner. My ring tune, my ring tuner. Yeah. So his later films, social
network, girl with a dragon tattoo and Gone Girl are frozen. This is the most frozen of
the three. I'm going to disagree. I feel like this is, this is on par with Gone Girl for
me. I think it's a, it's a different race though. Right. This one, you're removed and
you're from the outside looking in Gone Girl. You're very much involved with it's first
person. It's happening to you. It's this, but it's much more intimate. Yes. Sorry. Can
I just clarify when you say this is a different race, you mean Olympics and not Al Jolson?
I do mean that. Yes. I was going to say ball game because I've been playing lots of MLB
baseball. Ball game would have been better. We're a podcast Ben. We have to remember our
company. I see my issue. Yeah. It's a savagely cold, cynical, dark film. And I love it for
that because it's, it's essentially, it's a superhero film. I'm going to come back to
why it's a superhero film, both figuratively and literally. Please do. I will. I promise
I will. But I think the, the thing I want to, I want to come back to you very briefly
before I do is, is that whole concept of it. We're at the end of the year, the evenings
are getting shorter, nights are drawing in and it's sort of a bit reflective and a bit
like, Oh, you know, how's the year been? This has been a slightly rough one for us in lots
of ways. It's been great in lots of ways, but it's also been, if we're talking about
failures or like things that you could frame as failures. Okay. Yeah. We've had some stuff
going on, right? Like we, we, we, we made a conscious, we consciously uncoupled from
YouTube. We did. To put it in Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow terms. Yeah. Hated that,
but yeah. Yeah. There's a couple, there's a couple of like things that we've just gone,
do you know what, that's not for us. I think it's a smart move for now. Like they will
be for us, but for right now they can't be because we tried, we tried really hard is
what I'm pointing at. And, and we went, we're not seeing the return that we need. And that's
been kind of true of a lot of things this year. I mean, I don't know about you. Right.
I came into this year. I left a very stable job, very well paid, stable job. I wasn't
happy. It was a sit down office job. It was fine. The people I worked with were fine.
I was hitting quarterly targets within a week. So then I had well over two months of sort
of twiddling my thumbs. So I left that because I thought what better job to do in the winter
than be a postman wearing shorts, not been about chatting to people. There's your Christmas
prezi enjoy your day. Right. I think that's the sort of version of what a postman is that
can only come from postman Pat and then never investigating further. Yeah. Postman Pat.
And I stand that one guy from what's that Ricky? Afterlife. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's
my entire inspiration for that job switch. Anyway, the, the job fell through for no reason.
Uh, they just stopped emailing me back. So I'd left my job. I was like, Hey, so I've
done my induction, all of this stuff. And then that just all fell through. And I was
like, Oh cool. And they were like, yeah, we didn't tell you that you were to start. I
was like, you gave me a start date and an induction. Yeah. Great. Uh, then shortly after
that I, uh, I had a relationship, uh, failed. Yeah. Went through a breakup. That was pretty
savage because it was one of those relationships where you, I mean, I'm not going to speak
for anyone else, but I got all of my self-worth from that. I sort of had that as part of my
identity. Yeah. You, you totally codependented. Oh, a thousand percent. Yeah. That was, I
was, it was the most codependent situation I've ever been a part of. And it got to a
point where I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I liked. I didn't do stuff that
I was interested in. It was just going through the motions because it was comfortable and
familiar and easy. Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't nice to come to terms with because you sort
of, once you break away from this, I really had to sit and stare in the mirror and go,
wow, this ain't who I thought I'd be looking at right now. Yeah. And, you know what I mean?
Yeah. And I mean, anyone who wants to know my litany of failures, go listen to last week's
episode on a different man where I, for the first time probably ever on the show, well,
probably since green room, like opened up about how I was and what I was doing. And,
it was terrifying and awful and rare. It's just been, it's been a rough year, right?
We've had, we've had stuff going on that feels failure-y. Yeah. But here's why I think this
week is perfect to do Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Okay. Because we're covering it in the same
month that the film is set. And I think there's some valuable lessons about how we're feeling
in this film. Not intentionally. Don't get me wrong. We're covering every David Fincher
film ever, but by some miracle, it has, the chips have fallen in this beautiful way. So
let me give you some context. The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, you said, you know, it's
based on a book. Yeah. That book sold more than 30 million copies. Jesus Christ. It was
then made into a film starring Numi Rapace in Swedish, Swedish language. They were worldwide
total gross of a hundred million. Wow. For that one, for that first film. Respect. They
said, the US studios, they had this concept, right? So this is David Fincher quoting. David
Fincher says, I was offered Dragon Tattoo long before the first movie, the 2009 one
was made. Yeah. And I was in the middle of something else. Also, I was like lesbian hacker
on a motorcycle. I don't think so. Yeah, fair. And then, but then he goes on, he then goes
on, he goes, I wasn't that interested in the notion of making another serial killer movie
as much as the studio was committed to the idea of a hard R rated adult franchise. I'm
glad that gap between hard R and rated franchise was deafening. That was outrageous. I was
like, where is this one going? Cause I've just mistakenly said race instead of ballgame.
You can't be dropping hard R in the middle of an episode. He went on and he goes, look,
there's a very large talent pool of people who don't feel that there's much for them
in terms of sustenance working for Marvel. Okay. That's understandable. And I think if
we can make a playground for them, that is thoughtful, adult, interesting, complex, challenging,
there's a chance at something that isn't lassoed and hogtied by three act structure. Okay.
So in a sort of bizarre way, this was a sort of adult version of the MCU. Okay. I can see
that man. Lisbeth is a kind of grounded in reality, revenge tale superhero who doesn't
turn herself into like serious, genuine things happen to these people. Yeah. And they react
as we would want ourselves to, as we would like to think we would react if we had film
character levels of not giving a damn, right? Pack into a newspaper and then murder a bunch
of people. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Seeing injustice, getting it fixed. Yeah.
A brilliant, brilliant sort of incredibly satisfying thing to watch. It's a harrowing
thing to see why they've got to do those things. Yeah. Also really inspirational though. Cause
you know what I mean? I struggle with Excel. So, right. You know what I mean? Right. So
as a character, she's brilliant and she's a brilliant kind of like captain Sweden. Captain
Sweden. Right. Yeah. And it's a ridiculous comparison that I'm ashamed to make, but I
feel like there are some movie podcasts out there that you and I talk about that we will
not name. Smooth. That have gone down the Marvel route. And we often talk about, well, they're
doing really well. They're doing really, really well. Should we do that? And we go, nah, we're
not Marvel man. We're not doing that. We're not even DC. I think we're like, we're image
or with dark horse at best. I think that's what we're, but I'm talking about what we're
trying to be. They're trying to be everything for every person. Here's a movie fact. Did
you know that film isn't real? Oh my God. The actors are pretending. Yeah. That's such
a great insight. And then the other person goes, Oh my God, really? And we're like, Oh,
come on. Okay. Or there's like, did you know Jeff Goldblum before he was on Marvel? He
was in the fly. Oh my God. Really? He was also in Jurassic Park. Oh yeah. Of course.
Did you know that before she was an actress, Sigourney Weaver was a baby. Oh my God. Really?
Right. So there's that and it's super successful in it works. It's great. And so it's a ridiculous
comparison, but I can kind of understand the impetus to go. I see what's happening over
there and I don't think I could bring myself to do that. No. But what if we took the good
and we did an adult, interesting, slightly more challenging, slightly more thoughtful
version. Okay. And I think that's what this was going to be. They spent a huge amount
of money on it. Okay. So this was, let's get David Fincher. Let's get the most popular
book on the planet and let's get an incredible cast and let's make a franchise that operates
like the MCU. I love this. But it's for grownups. I love this. What a brilliant idea, right?
I find that it feeds into, like I've got a note here saying multiple storylines and what
they represent. That's the tagline for it. Right? Give me, give me this note. Tell me
what it is. So this note, you've got so many different branches of film under one umbrella
in this, right? Right. You've got the murder mystery, which turns into like a big serial
killer hunt. You've got the ruined identity of the investigative journalist and how that
has the potential to be resolved. He's had his reputation destroyed and he's got one
last Hail Mary chance to get his identity back. His credential back, right? And then,
but also that he's got like a little carrot on the end of a stick, like dangling in front
of him. That's sort of tempting him to do these certain things. It's incredible. But
you've also got this outrageously upsetting storyline of Lisbeth's situation and how she's
actively isolated, manipulated, taken advantage of is how I've worded it. But you want me
to be not incorrect? It's one of the most harrowing scenes I've seen in a 2000s era
movie. She's just fucking outright abused in every single situation. And it comes from,
it's especially done by the people and the powers that are there to protect her. Now,
if that doesn't spell out the foundation of an adult MCU universe, I don't know what does
because that is like, what's fantastic about her as a character is that she has these awful
things happen to her and she is a victim, but she never allows herself to be victimized.
And the people that do, she gets back at and goes, I think fucking not sunshine. She's
bang out. Right. It's interesting because the original title of the book in Swedish
is men who hate women. I like that better. Right. I just half wanted you to say the girl
with the dragon tattoo and a really bad Swedish accent. That's the childish version of me.
You know what I mean? We're here to grow. Yeah. Right. Of course. Of course. What's
terrifying and beautiful about this film. It's not a three act structure. It's not
like subplots are resolved in the first third of the film. Yeah. And the main characters
don't meet until halfway through. Yeah. For the first half of this film, you're watching
two separate films side by side. You are both fucked up as each other. They really are.
They really are. I, okay. I'm just going to come out and say, we're not going to talk
about what I would call the main theme of this, which is violence against women. Okay.
Because A, it makes for a really difficult to listen to episode. Yep. And B, I don't
think we're the people whose opinion really matters on this one. I'm going to agree with
it. I think two white males on a podcast are arguably overqualified. We don't need that
again. Exactly. You don't need two white guys to talk, to fix, to fix all the reasons that
there's sexual violence against women. Not again. You know, it can't be us every time.
For a third time. You know what I mean? For our American listeners, we're being ironic.
That is pure sarcasm. Actual joke. Context is lol. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're leaning
into the awfulness of other podcasts who go, let me tell you what I think about the sexual
violence against women. We're just not qualified. Yeah. Right. We've never, we've never been
victim to it and we've never committed any. So what do we know about it? Yeah. We can't
patronize and be sort of like, no, I know where you're coming from. Right. Yeah. We
just don't. We don't. There's no way. But that is, that is kind of a huge theme in it.
I'm okay. But I think, I think what makes it excellent is it, it's never exploitative.
It's not. It's never voyeuristic. It's never sexy. No. And it's, and it's, it's righted
by a woman on her own terms without any help from any male character. Yep. Daniel Craig's
character in this doesn't fix her issues for her. She fixes them and then she comes to
help him. Yeah. She fixes his issues. Exactly. Like every time he has an issue, she fixes
it. And then if he's having a bit of an issue, she takes precautions to make sure it doesn't
happen again. And it's like, I might be in love. I'm just saying, you know what I mean?
Lisbeth Salander in this film is, is, is goals. Holy shit. Yeah. Unreal. She looks, I mean,
she's your perfect woman. She looks like a, a heroin addicted alien. Yeah. And she's got
a touch of autism. You know what I mean? There's a, there's a smidge. Riddled. Absolutely riddled.
There's a smidge. Okay. I can, I can see this bit talking about Rooney Mara. Rooney Mara,
I've only just clicked in this exact moment right now was in the social network. She was.
So get this, get this. David Fincher worked with her for four days on the social network.
And when she heard that he was making dragon tattoo, she was desperate for it. Okay. She
really, really wanted to do it. And he was like, no, she's like the clean cut all American
girl. Cause in his head, he had her as Erica Albright, her character in the social network.
So she campaigned and she campaigned, she campaigned, and eventually she managed to
get a test screening. Yeah. She had to convince David, which took like three or four screen
tests. And then once he was convinced, he had to convince the studio. So it ended up
taking about six or seven months of her turning up, getting into character, getting dressed
up, doing screen tests, getting photos taken back and forth and back and forth and back
and forth. At one point she was booked to do promo for the social network and the production
company rang her and they're like, you need to come in to screen test. She's like, I can't,
I've got to go to Europe for Elle magazine. And they're like, yep, just tell them you
got food, food poisoning. She's like, I mean, in my head I was going, they either want you
or they don't. And they should just f**k off at this point. Yeah. But of course I went
anyway, cause I wanted the part. So, uh, haircut, obviously that's real. Uh, bleached your eyebrows,
kept them bleached for the duration of filming. Incredible. Lost an unhealthy amount of weight.
Yeah. The piercings are real. Eyebrow piercings real, the nipple piercings real. Cause she
wanted, she said that when, cause there's so much nudity in the film, she felt like
she was more comfortable if she had all the piercings. Cause it meant even when she was
naked, she was still in costume. That's interesting. She's not, it's not Rooney Mara naked on screen
because Rooney Mara doesn't have piercings. Right. Yeah. Um, she then went, uh, martial
arts training. Okay. She went motorcycle training. She got a dialect coach to get the accent.
Okay. And she also weirdly learned to skateboard. To skateboard? Yes. Does she skateboard in
this film? No, not once. Okay. David Fincher said, uh, she's a bit androgynous and she's
got kind of arrested development. You know, she's said she's 24 in the film, but she is
mentally much younger than that. She's not as mature as that. Right. And she's a bit
of a misfit. So I want her to have the walk of a 13 year old boy. So you're going to learn
how to skateboard and get your weight all weird and just do, do something a 13 year
old boy does. So she learned to skateboard so she could get an, in so much of the behind
the scenes footage. He's like, do the skateboard thing and you'll see her posture change.
And he's like, yeah, mint. My favorite thing about that fact is that Fincher at some point
saw a 13 year old boy skating and was like, that's the posture. That's the posture that
she needs. Yeah. Exactly. That's what I want for my film. So wildly specific. But can you
imagine like, you're just there like learning to skateboard going, I just want to be in
a film man. Yeah. But can you imagine being on a skate park and someone being like, why
are you in the social network? Why are you learning to skateboard? Just like, yeah, shut
the fuck up. I'm trying to be a Swedish badass. The worst thing is after all of that, do you
want to hear what David Fincher said? Go on. It is savage. Okay. He just said, I quote
David Fincher. Yeah. Piercings are piercings and losing weight is losing weight. I think
that's important to maybe the golden globes. It's not so important to me. After all that
effort. For me, it's about, is the person willing to do the work on themselves to understand
this character, which saves the quote a bit. I was going to say, Jesus Christ, that's a
massive U-turn at the end. Why did you leave that pause? Your pause is today out of pocket,
man. We need to talk about this. Jesus. But I love the idea that he's just sending her
on random quests. I love that. Oh, you want the part. Cool. Go climb that mountain and
ask the guy at the top. Yeah. Oh, what you want? Three riddles. You want to be a 24 year
old Swedish badass getting a knife fight with a smack head in Stockholm. You can begin to
see why this costs 90 million. Not to mention it was shot in Sweden. So the days are incredibly
short. Oh my. Yeah. So the daytime shots, they had very little time to film them. So
something that would take a day to film in Atlanta takes three in Sweden. That's nutty
because you just haven't got the light for that long. Like it was a, it was an insanely
long shooting schedule. It was like 160 days of primary. Jesus Christ. Yeah. And it is,
it was purely because of the location. That's insane. 160 days is insane. With David Fincher
though, and everything's got to be done 90 times. Yeah. But most of his films are like
40, 50 days and everyone's like, Jesus Christ, that was exhausting. Literally three times
that amount. Fair play. But I mean, look, the setting's important. I get it. And I'm
glad he went there. Dude, the setting, this is another one of my notes, the setting and
location. Like I can't get over, I can't get over how the film feels. You know, that's
really like knobby thing that people say where it's like, Oh God, New York city is just a
character in itself. Yes. I'm 100%. Dude, this entire backdrop is a living, breathing,
talking definitely loud character in this film. It's so upsetting. Like I can't even
put my finger on white. It's like it is a, it's a desolate, desperately lonely backdrop,
right? I have this tiny little remote Island, Midlands, Sweden. Now that's heroin. That's
eerie enough, right? All on its own. But then with the two main characters, Michaela and
Elizabeth bring in some of the most fucked up trauma that you've ever heard with them.
This little murder Island becomes just paralyzing with fear. It is just, it's electric. The
whole thing is, is edge of your seat kind of stuff. The, it's, it's just the perfect
backdrop, man. It's a perfect backdrop for like a noir mystery doused in personal and
professional fucked up. What I love about what Finch has done is even if you look at
something as simple as the title of the original book, men who hate women, he's taken Michael
Blomkist's flaws and brought them right to the front. He was married and he cheated on
his wife with his editor, who he then cheats on with his assistant. Yeah. It's not great.
It's not great. It's a dysfunction and snow and just cold, cynical beauty. Yeah. And I
think that's the thing is it's, it's, it's the, it's the beauty of the desolation because
it's a relief from the human stuff. That's exactly what it is. If anxiety had a front
garden, that's right. It's gorgeous. Right. Now we normally do this at the end, but I
need to tell you how much this film made now. Okay. Cause against that 90 million budget,
it made a hundred million in the U S that's nothing. Now it made 239 million globally,
but this was not the massive U S hit that they wanted. And for reference, right. The
Avengers, which is kind of what they were had the seeds of building comes out five months
later and makes a clean 1.5 billion. Yeah. All right. Right. Yeah. I see that though,
but I reckon this could have made a billion if you throw an Iron Man in the middle of
it. You know what I mean? So what this got off the first bat on its first installment
that Marvel, I think really struggles with this got five Academy award nominations. Jesus
Christ. And it won for, you know, some of the smaller categories, right. It wasn't what
they needed as far as the studio where they were like, we wanted a bigger hit, but they
let him carry on progress on the sequel continued. Okay. But it's David Fincher. Yeah, of course.
So he was writing and he was writing and then in August, 2012, so a full 18 months later,
there's delays in the script. So July, 2013, he gets Andrew Kevin Walker in. Yeah. He wrote
seven. He signs on to do rewrites, keeps writing because they're trying to do the next two
films back to back. Okay. So they're working, working, working. And then the fourth book
in the series, the girl and the spider's webs released. Yeah. And is huge. Yeah. And Sony,
who was sick of waiting and want their money and want their this, that or the other, just
clean slate, just go, no, we'll, we'll start again with the girl and the spider's web.
I saw this on prime after I'd finished watching girl, the dragon tattoo, this one popped up
an English speaking language. Yeah. I was like, we'll come back to that one. I was like,
I don't understand where this is. Where am I? Come back. We will come back to, to that
because I adore this film. Okay. I adore these characters. I adore this, these versions of
the characters. The only way I'm going to get what I need is to read the books and picture
these characters. Oh, that sounds fun. That's all I can do because there will never be a
U S version and the Swedish versions are much less David Fincher. Let's put it that way.
Yeah, I can imagine. And that's just, you're right. I'm just, I don't, I'm not interested
in that. I'm not interested in that. I love the coldness and the isolation and the David
Finchiness of this. Dude, this, okay. I'm 1000% with you, 1000% with you. This is my
big thought on this film. Ooh. You've, you've led me perfectly to this. So the main takeaway
that I got from this film is the, how the story spot, how the story puts a spotlight
on loneliness. Okay. But then tell me more. But then how Fincher really digs the nails
in and emphasizes it with his work. And it's right. It's sort of like this weird combination
of masterful filmmaking. Yeah. And disgusting trauma being thrown at you. But it's being
handled in a way that you're like, okay, maybe, maybe there's something in this and it just,
so it starts and then it just progressively gets weird. Right. So take the, the Vanga
family, right? Everyone's portrayed as wealthy, successful, but honestly, have you ever seen
a group of more actively lonely people in your entire life? Oh God no. They all live
on the same Island and none of them talk to each other. They're all surrounded by people,
but no one has an ear that they can trust. Like not one person that they can trust. And
it is, it's heartbreaking to look at. Cause I'm like, I can feel for that. Not having
one person to entrust like on an entire Island, including your family must be the hardest
thing to live with. And you're all just doing it in Sweden, in the snow. You know what I
mean? You've got Mikhail. So Mikhail is an English guy. He's a journalist whose career
has recently been thrown into turmoil. He's got a daughter from a previous marriage. He
is trying to just be, you know what I mean? He's just trying to be him, get his cred back,
be a dad. That's essentially what it is. Then you've got Lisbeth, ridiculously smart, incredibly
resilient. And when I say resilient, I mean just the strongest female character in a movie
that we've seen in forever. Yeah. She's meant, she's meant, she's absolutely meant. She's
a superhero. She's a horrendously abused woman that is not just, she's not just chosen to
be isolated. She's forced to be isolated. It's a safety issue for her. It's a safety
issue for her. Emotionally, physically. Right. But it's also, it's also a non-negotiable
situation for her because her employer, she's weird. People don't like her. She works from
her and we don't want her in the office, but she's great at what she does. You know what
I mean? Yeah. Her living situation where she's living in that little rundown little flat,
she gets handed an allowance to pay her rent and that's it. Her legal guardian, awful,
awful, awful. And it's just, it's, if you've seen the movie irreversible, this is as bad.
As bad, but not 12 minutes on edited. Yeah, true. But it's mainly the lack of trust. It's
the lack of trust in her as a functioning adult from a system that's designed to protect
her that really, really ruined me. The worst thing about all of this though, bud, and by
a long shot, and we've not mentioned it yet, is Harriet. Yeah. She's a background character.
She's the, she's the focal point of the film, but she is a background character. She's the
McGuffin. She's the, she's the gold night over Indiana Jones is chasing, right? We've
got to find what happened to this girl. And then you sort of get lost in the mystery of
it. But when you really take a step back and you look at it, she's a kid that was forced
to flee from like a murderous family on her own to a land that is not her home with no
lifeline. She can't risk getting in touch with her family or her friends because the
chances are that her insanely wealthy, powerful family will track her down and do a murder.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So with all of this going on, this is sort of like that.
There's the isolating factors, the storylines that are all at play constantly. Yeah. You've
got, and then you've got Fincher in steps Fincher. You know what I mean? He paints his
harrowing picture in gorgeous cinematography. It's a cold blue filter instills on everything,
on everything. And it's still a sense of isolation. And then you've got the soundtrack. The soundtrack
might be the most intense that we've seen on this show of late. Like the social network
was, was great. It was bang at it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross bang at it. Yeah. Incredible.
But this is insane. Like it's spine chill. It's, it's, it is the spine chill in swelling
monster. It's riddled with sudden pregnant silence that hits you square in the spine
and just disrupts your entire soul on a molecular level. I've always said, cause as we discussed
when we covered the social network, I'm a massive Nine Inch Nails nerd. They are my
one man. This soundtrack is the sound of like frost forming on, on a window. Yes. It's the,
and like, it's just the, it's the coldest, sparsest, but if you put it on loud, put it
on your headphones loud, you will have a mental health episode. Yeah. It's outrageous. Like
honestly Trent Reznor and Atticus can f*** right off. Like seriously, they have no right
having this much sway over my mental health. They have no right whatsoever. Maybe this
is the gray day. You know what I mean? Maybe this explains the gray brain. The worst thing
about this whole thing and the best thing about this whole thing is Fincher highlights
everything with these little tiny throw away moments and statements that force you to understand
the isolation of even the most minor characters, the characters that you never meet. You only
hear stories of, but you understand their situation wholeheartedly. I've got an example
for this, right? You know, the scene where Martin is hosting the dinner for, with his
Mrs. And Mikael. And there's a noise off in the distance and he's like, Oh, someone would
must've left the door open. It's the wind. It's the wind. Whatever it is. It's this,
that and the other. And he dips off and it comes back and it's all played off as like
fine and no one suspects a thing. And you forget about it. Yeah. Cause you're like,
it's a non, it's a non, it's a non thing. Nothing. It's a bit of wind. Shut up. Who
cares? But what it is in actual life, in actual fact, it's the last moments of life.
Of Martin's latest victim. Yeah. And this is then doubled down on when we see the cage
in Martin's basement and he casually in a throw away thing goes, yeah, she was in that
cage while you were eating dinner. Like it means nothing to him. And Fincher hides it
because you, you, there's this kind of screaming whistle through the house. Yeah. And then
later when Daniel Craig sneaks into the house, he leaves the door slightly ajar. Yes. So
you think that that moment was foreshadowing for this explains the mechanism by which he
will be discovered, right? So you're like, Oh, okay. That's why there was that weird
moment with the site, screaming, whistling noise of the wind through the house. It's
so that we'd understand how Martin would know that Daniel Craig's character was, was in
the house. No, no, no, no, no. My good boy. What he does, what Fincher's done is he's
made, he's forced you to empathize with the last moments of a character that you're never
going to see here or meet ever. There was nothing but inane sadness that hit me by the
truckload, see in the cage in the background. And it just casually brushed off like it meant
nothing. I was like, that was someone's entire struggle. That was someone's entry in the
Saw franchise. How does a filmmaker have the gall to make me care about these anonymous
people that are just Polaroids on a map of where the murders have taken place? And when
you find out what you do find out, it's 14 years old, Martin's the killer shocker. I've
got a quote from David Fincher that's relevant to your cage observation. Yeah. It's about
the scene earlier in the film, which is so difficult to watch. But he says you walk a
line, you know, everything has to move the story forward, but I won't be unhappy if people
faint. Unbelievable. Do you know what I mean? Fincher makes me nervous, man. He picked this
up and went, yeah, I'm going to do it this way. It's a conscious choice. The worst thing
about it is on top of everything, the one thing that really sells to me that Fincher
might be a serial killer, Zodiac, social network, seven, you know what I mean? Gone Girl. Gone
Girl, we're not there yet. Gone Girl gets to me in a whole different level and it's
10 times worse than this. Yeah. Don't get me started on that because I'll freak out.
But this is what I'm saying. So he's he's doing some stuff, right? He might be a serial
killer. Yeah. And he might be doing what the Zodiac's doing, but instead of sending letters
to a newspaper, he's making films. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Do you know what I
mean? This is what I'm thinking. Is the next David Fincher going to be making a film about
a cold case of a director that made a load of great movies about serial killers whilst
being a serial killer in 20 years time? Just coming back for a moment to the cruelty of
this film. You're right. It's very isolating. It's a very lonely film, except for the fact
that our two characters find solace in one another. It's the most beautiful thing about
the film by a long shot. Right. Except it doesn't end. No, it does not. With them coming
together. It ends with Lisbeth riding off, believing that the man that she, her first
friend, really, she makes him a custom motorcycle jacket. And what breaks my heart is that the
card that she writes happy Christmas in, the design on the front is like a horse hugging
a bunny. It's really naive. It's really childlike. It's really like something that she picked
because it reminds her of a time when she was last happy, which would have been very
young. And then she sees him in the distance arm in arm with his editor, assumes that they're
back together, chucks it in the bin, rides off, roll credits. And that is where these
characters, these version of the characters will stay forever. Yeah. And that is the most
disgusting injustice that I can think of that Hollywood... Do you know who did that injustice
to you? Fede Alvarez. Off. I hate this guy already. My blood, my piss is boiling right
now. I need you to finish off for why. So it makes sense. Cause at the moment I'm just
flying. I'm off the handle. Evil deads ruined. So aliens ruined. Right. The guy he made,
Oh my God. He made don't breathe. It's awful. Yeah. And he ruined this sick Finch. Finch
is working away. He's taking his time. It's costing a lot of money. He's got Andrew Kevin
Walker in the studio. See this new book, the girl in the spider's web and they go, do you
know what? We're just going to do a soft reboot. Right. And so they, because they skipped two
books and they start on the first of the next trilogy of the books. Cause there's this four
or five books in total. Okay. There's the millennium trilogy of which this is the first.
And then the book immediately after that was a, the girl and the spider's web. Right. And
it's much more upfront spy thriller kind of she's using sniper rifles and blah, blah,
blah, blah. And it's starring Claire Foy and it's directed by Feday Alvarez. And it came
out. It, it flopped. They're never going to come back to this franchise. Whatever he touches
just turns to it's so annoying that everyone's like, what a masterpiece, what a masterpiece
he's taken everything that's wrong with the evil dead and banged it into a film. He's
taken all charisma out of it and just done a reboot that literally turns a dog killer
into a hero. It's insane that people are buying that and going, yeah, it's good horror film
though. And it's like, yeah, evil dead film though, isn't it? And then he has a crack
at alien. He takes the things we've ever said on screen and goes, yeah, I'm just gonna put
all that in one film. Cause why not? Also inherently scared of guns, xenomorphs shut
up. Of course he's touched this, he's gone to sh... What a shocker. So what's been killed
is not only these characters and their future, you know, screen, we will never see them again.
But also that idea that we spoke about in the beginning of that adult franchise, that
kind of intelligent, thoughtful, more considered, more complex interconnected universe with
real people going through real things and having real reactions, but as part of a larger
franchise. Now everyone's just scared of guns. So it failed. It fell flat on its face. It
was a huge waste of everything. Shocker. And here's what Fincher has to say about it. He
says, we did it the way that we could. And when people say it costs too much for what
the return on investment was, I said, okay, swing and a miss. It's an interesting kind
of coming to terms with like, he's fine with it. He's accepted it. He's just gone, not
everything, you know, you can't do everything. He even says, you know, you can't take everything
on. That's why when people ask, how does this film fit into my uvra? I say, I don't know.
I don't think in those terms. If I did, I might become incapacitated by fear. That's
incredibly mature. So, right. So for our, for our many things we tried this year for
our, we're going to do these series and maybe this will be the one that blows up or I'm
going to switch job and maybe this one or relationship. The person who I think actually
speaks on this the best is Trent Reznor. Somebody says, you know, uh, how do you deal with rejection?
How do you deal with failure? And he goes, Oh, the time on question. Most artists will
tell you it doesn't matter what others think and it matters what you think. Once you finish
it. I'd like to say, I believe that, but in reality, I can look back on my own work
and feel great about something. Then it gets critically sh** canned or someone hates it
and that's the one that sticks with me. I feel like I've failed somebody. The public's
reaction to something can often taint your experience and I try to not put too much weight
on that. It does make its way into a process and particularly in this information driven
world we live in where everyone's found a way to express their opinion. At the end of
the day, what really matters is when you finished a project is that feeling of, Hey, this is
the very best I can do. And I'm proud of it. And I don't think I've let anything out.
I haven't felt that way about what the public thinks of it. And retrospect in hindsight
hasn't always agreed with my opinion, but it has to pass that muster for me to let it
pass. I know Fincher feels the same way. I know he feels strongly about everything he's
done and that he poured his heart and soul into it. I really like that. And I'm looking
back at our year and I think we've done the same. Yeah. I've been proud of everything
we've done this year. Yeah. We've fallen flat on some things, but we've grown massively
in other areas though. Look at you. Yeah. You're a different person to who you were
a year ago, man. I've never been prouder. Grim. That's not grim. It's grim. It's too
grim in reality. We are sorely out of time. Guys. Thank you so much for hanging out with
us. It's been an absolute pleasure. We love each and every one of you. Incredibly, incredibly.
So if you would like to support the show, please feel free to head over to our Patreon.
You can start supporting the show for as little as a pound. No pressure to though. We completely
understand. You know, it's that time of year finances, tough cost of living is going through
the roof. Yeah. I, I'm with, I'm with Ben here. I'm with Ben here. That's very, very
polite of you, Ben. And yes, by all means we understand people. But if you're not going
to join the Patreon, tell a friend, share our, share our social media reals. Cause otherwise,
what are you doing? Just leave a review. Just do something. Just do something. I'm sick
of this freeloading. Right? You've come here, you've listened to our show. What are you
going to do for us? All right. This is what it is. I need some, I need some return. We've
done this very transactionally. You know what I mean? There's nothing, there's no unconditional
love. You owe us now. You owe us. We love you with all of our hearts. Conditionally.
As long as, as long as certain criteria are met. Yeah. There you go. That's what we're
trying to say. No, obviously I'm joking. Obviously I'm joking. It's been lovely having you. Um,
and to thank you for spending an hour of your week with us, especially at the start of the
week. We know a lot of you listen on a Monday. Ben is going to wrap up the thoughts, themes
and feelings of this week's movie into a Monday motivational pep talk. While I just do what
I always do and just tell you to consume Fincher. I keep saying it, man. Fincher worries me,
right? Cause as we all know Fincher is from San Francisco, part of California. And we
also know from Fincher's previous filmography, a little, a little clue that he's left the
one of his films previously. There is not many basements in California, but hear me
out now. Does anyone know if Fincher has a basement? Also now hear me out. Has anyone
decided to check his basement? Because I feel like after the last couple of films, it's
a warranted check just, just for sort of, you know, just for welfare, just for welfare.
He's a charming fella. He's, he's, you know, he's good. Ted Bundy, he was a charming fella.
He was good looking, but I mean, say what you want about Fritzel. He was a terrible
person, but he was a fantastic locksmith. You know what I mean? All of them are good
looking. That's what I'm saying.