Mikael Blomkvist

It really has that Agatha Christie feel at first.

We have Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced, highly ethical investigative journalist.

He is hired by Henrik Vanger, an incredibly wealthy aging industrialist, to investigate the disappearance of his teenage niece, Harriet.

From decades ago.

Its storyline of topical relevance concerning the abuse and murder of young and vulnerable women by wealthy or influential men who operate apparently unchecked by law enforcement, and the film's enigmatic heroine, or anti-heroine, who plays with convention and reverses stereotypes.

Wealthy businessman Henrik Wanger seeks information about the disappearance or, he suspects, murder of his niece Harriet some 40 years previously, and he hires famed journalist Mikael Blomqvist to investigate.

Mikael is a man of integrity and principle, who has been framed by a corrupt businessman and who is awaiting a prison sentence for libel.

He pursued an investigation into mega-wealthy businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, but he is outplayed by Wennerstrom, who feeds Mikael false information that allows Wennerstrom to take Mikael to court, where he is sentenced to a few months' imprisonment, though that is deferred for a short time.

[laughs]

So we've got Daniel Craig plays journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who, as the film starts, is under media scrutiny and has a lawsuit that has been brought up against him for an article that has been written where he hasn't got all his facts in order.

The media are hounding him over this scandal.

He is then presented an opportunity by a very wealthy man named Henrik Vanger to invi- investigate the disappearance of his grandniece when she was 16 years old some 40 years ago.

When I was looking into trying to remember his character's name-

It's-

... it'll be he's Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist.

Yeah.

Uh, so the Swedish version, uh, you know, to the extent it can be, uh, re- remains quite faithful to the text.

The American version has flipped much of the focus away from Lisbeth, uh, Salander, the main character, to- The male, uh, investigative journalist, um, Mikael Blomkvist, he's, he's the man, he's the centerpiece of it, and she kind of does his bidding to some extent and is, you know, wishes that he was more interested in her, which is a, a, a completely different sense, let's call it, of that relationship than, than is in the original book and in, and in the Swedish version of the movie.

So there's no doubt that from a cultural point of view, I don't know if that was inevitable or whether the screenwriters of the English version thought, "We better reassert a little bit of the, of the US gender preferences in these relationships, uh, uh, to the one which, um, Stieg Larsson, mm, conceptualized in, in, in the book."

Mm.

It was a posthumous global sensation.

It pairs Mikael Blomkvist, who is this disgraced, stubborn financial journalist, with Lisbeth Salander, who is undoubtedly one of literature's most iconic and ferociously original creations, a brilliant antisocial hacker.

She really is iconic.

Right.