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David Fincher's The Girl Who Played with Fire Review: Suck It Denby, I Beat You By Two Years

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Miscellaneous | Comments (24)

girl-with-dragon-tattoo-fincher-poster.jpg

If you missed it over the weekend, and there’s every reason you should because, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter even a little bit, New Yorker movie critic David Denby broke the review embargo on David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and decided to it publish it before the December 13th date the studio had set. What ensued was a catty little bitch fight between Denby and drama queen, Scott Rudin, the producer of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. The Playlist procured copies of the email exchange between Denby and Rudin, and here are a few select excerpts:

After Rudin called Denby out for breaking the embargo, Denby responded, in part:

The system is destructive: Grown-ups are ignored for much of the year, cast out like downsized workers, and then given eight good movies all at once in the last five weeks of the year. A magazine like “The New Yorker” has to cope as best as it can with a nutty release schedule. It was not my intention to break the embargo, and I never would have done it with a negative review … So we had a dilemma: What to put in the magazine on December 5? Certainly not We Bought the Zoo, or whatever it’s called. If we held everything serious, we would be coming out on Christmas-season movies until mid-January. We had to get something serious in the magazine. So reluctantly, we went early with “Dragon,” which I called “mesmerizing.” I apologize for the breach of the embargo. It won’t happen again.

Rudin shot back:

Your seeing the movie was conditional on your honoring the embargo, which you agreed to do. The needs of the magazine cannot trump your word. The fact that the review is good is immaterial, as I suspect you know. You’ve very badly damaged the movie by doing this, and I could not in good conscience invite you to see another movie of mine again … I can’t ignore this, and I expect that you wouldn’t either if the situation were reversed. I’m really not interested in why you did this except that you did — and you must at least own that, purely and simply, you broke your word to us and that that is a deeply lousy and immoral thing to have done.

(The entire exchange can be read on The Playlist)

Immoral? Jesus, Rudin: It’s not like the guy slept with your wife or killed your dog, or slept with your dog and killed your wife, and I have no idea how Denby’s review will “badly damage” the movie. On the other hand, it’s clear that David Denby just wanted to be first and broke an arbitrary rule in order to do so and justified himself with empty excuses. Still, it won’t hurt the movie; the only people really affected here are the other movie critics, who have their undies in a bunch because they honored the silly code and now they don’t get to be first and reap whatever benefit that presumably entails, and given the self-righteous anger among many critics, that benefit apparently entails lifelong fame and daily sex with Eva Mendes.

Hey! I want lifelong fame and sex with Eva Mendes! And if Denby is going to break the rules, then screw it: So am I. It’s too late to be first on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — which Denby called “mesmerizing” and “bleak,” by the by — but I can still jump out ahead of The New Yorker on our The Girl Who Played with Fire review. Never mind that I haven’t seen it. I’ve seen the trailer for the first one, and I’ve seen the Swedish version of The Girl Who Played with Fire, and I’m breaking ALL the rules, so that seems like enough to go on.

And what did I think of David Fincher’s The Girl Who Played with Fire? It was good, but not as good as his first film. The visuals were there, Fincher managed to bring the same bleak intensity to the movie, and Rooney Mara continued to build on her excellent performance in the first movie, which I haven’t seen. Unfortunately, the story just wasn’t up to snuff, which is more of a problem with Stieg Larsson’s source material than Fincher’s skill as a director. After the unqualified success of Fincher’s first movie, the sequel felt like a generic knock-off. A superbly directed, masterfully acted knock-off, but a knock-off all the same. It’s still definitely worth checking out in December 2013, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to living up to Fincher’s original.









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Comments

Can we just, like, as a culture stop saying people need to "own" their mistakes? What the fuck does that even mean? "I screwed up, alright? I'm gonna own this.". Phew, I was a little worried there for a moment. But, now that I know you going to own your mistake, I feel much better.

Posted by: pissant at December 5, 2011 11:14 AM

That Rudin dude needs to get off his high horse, how the hell would an early review damage the bloody movie?? Thoroughly enjoyed your embargo breaching review for the 2nd installation of the series. I think you can write a whole bunch of reviews for not yet existing sequels, piranha 3D 2, despicable me 2, Breaking Dawn part II etc etc.

Posted by: Lauwer at December 5, 2011 11:16 AM

I just finished reading "TGWTDT" and thought it was above average for the genre, but really, Larsson's story (and by that I mean the story of what happened to Larsson) is far more interesting.

Kinda stoked to see the movie, but the public is in the same mess the critics are. There are three or four movies we've been waiting to see, and it's obvious now they're all going to come out at the same time, and most real people have only one or two days a week to see them all, which either means doubling up and spending six hours at the theater (not to mention an extortionate amount of money) or missing some of them on the first go-round.

The studios don't do much of anything for the convenience of the actual, you know, movie-goers, do they? And they wonder why piracy is a problem.

Posted by: , at December 5, 2011 11:20 AM

"Don't break the embargo", AKA "don't mess with our precisely timed marketing blitz".

Consumer frenzy is not created one trickle at a time, folks.

Posted by: barereklame at December 5, 2011 11:28 AM

pissant, I agree, I prefer to encourage people to take responsibility for their actions/decisions and the outcome, how the fuck can you own something like that?

Posted by: Nadine at December 5, 2011 11:59 AM

This is brilliant. I love you, Pajiba.

Posted by: kiz at December 5, 2011 12:02 PM

It will be hilarious if this comes in under $20M opening weekend (I'm betting it's gonna flop by the way just to be contrarian to the rest of the Pajibaverse) and then watch Rudin blame it on the New Yorker running their positive review a week early.

Posted by: TylerDFC at December 5, 2011 12:20 PM

Rudin's reaction does come off sounding rediculous ("You’ve very badly damaged the movie by doing this") and while that makes it seem like his point is trivial and insignificant I do think he has a legitimate reason to be upset.

David Denby, and even moreso his editors at The New Yorker are supposed to be professional journalists. They were given the benefit of an advanced screening and they signed an agreement not to publish a review until a certain date. Then they promptly violated that agreement in order to get page hits and sell magazines. Fuck those guys. They aren't champions of the people fighting the good fight against the tyranny of greedy movie studios. They are assholes.

How can anyone even consider faulting the producers of the film in this case? Why does every smartass with an internet nickname think they are in a position to judge how harmful or insignificant this action is to the filmmakers?

Look, David Fincher (who I happen to have immense respect for, but that is beside the point) and a bunch of other people got together and spent a lot of time and money working really hard to create something. It's their project and they should have some control over it's release and distribution.

What is it about the internet and pop culture that gives people such an out-of-control sense of entitlement? They don't owe you advance screenings and readily available youtube trailers. You don't get to justify violating their wishes regarding their work because "oh what's the big deal, I've concluded by way of self-serving assumption that it won't do any harm, and they are a giant Hollywood bullshit machine anyway so fuck em even if it does." (or my other favorite "Oh, it's a shitty movie anyway, so it doesn't matter.")

Everything isn't immediately in the public domain before it is even completed just because you have broadband and a keyboard. Shut the fuck up and wait a week. Have a little respect for the talented and hard-working people who spend months and years of their lives on large collaborative projects.

Posted by: Yossarian at December 5, 2011 12:21 PM

What was this guy worried about? No one takes movie reviews seriously.

Posted by: logan at December 5, 2011 12:46 PM

^^What he said!

Our ridiculous culture of entitlement is swiftly coming to an end. Hopefully history will learn from us better than it did from the Romans.

Posted by: Oroboros at December 5, 2011 12:48 PM

Clarification: I was referring to Yossarian, that is.

I look forward to the film, not because of the book (although solid) but because Fincher is one of my favorite directors.

Posted by: Oroboros at December 5, 2011 12:53 PM

Wait, did I miss who was demanding this early other than the writer trying to get more hits/drum up news? How is this a reflection on society's sense of entitlement as a whole?

I do think that Rudin is in the right to be pissed, and the review shouldn't be run early, especially considering the agreement was in writing. However, embargoing reviews is essentially a good faith tool of the studios to keep up buzz leading up to the release (and also to delay and/or quash potentially negative press).

It's the studio's product and their right to do so, but they're using/controlling the critics as best they can just as the critics who get the advanced screenings are using the studios as well.

Plus, breaking these embargoes (which are also very common in the video game industry) has happened many times before, Inception, Watchmen, The Wrestler to name a few. This isn't THAT shocking, though it still isn't right.

Did Rudin kick up such a fuss when the same thing happened on The Social Network? If memory serves, I thought that it helped that film, and Rudin ended up being pretty pleased about it?

Posted by: Jast at December 5, 2011 1:48 PM

Thank you, Yossarian, for that very articulate explanation.

Regardless of anything else, no matter how you feel about movie reviews and their lack of impact - Denby broke an agreement, then proceeded to provide excuses as to why it was acceptable, and then got pissy at being called out about it. Not only is that a dick move, it's unprofessional.

It also looks like a calculated misuse of power on the New Yorker's part. While Rudin and a few other producers may stop inviting the mag to previews, most producers, I assume, can't afford to leave the mag out of future press events.
A much smaller mag/blog/website couldn't afford to break embargo as the prospect of being blocked from future events would be a very real negative consequence. So, it's also a dick move to all the other reviewers/movie sites/publications out there.

Posted by: llaurus at December 5, 2011 1:51 PM

Rat's ass is too valuable to give for this exchange between overpaid narcissistic babies.

Posted by: klingonfree at December 5, 2011 2:29 PM

It’s not like the guy slept with your wife or killed your dog, or slept with your dog and killed your wife.

I wonder what kind of forced-application stomach tattoo that would receive.

Posted by: Lauren at December 5, 2011 2:30 PM

When every major NYC publication broke the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark review "embargo," the producers issued a simple statement about how they regret the critics reviewing a production that was not a complete project. Even they were not dumb enough to send threatening e-mails to each individual critic who broke the "embargo" (more a gentleman's agreement). When the $75mill+ Broadway disaster has better business sense than you, it's time to quit your day job.

Posted by: Robert at December 5, 2011 3:37 PM

A Hollywood producer scolding a movie reviewer over a breach of ethics is pretty amusing.

Don't Hollywood producers breach more ethics by 9 AM than most people (outside of Washington, D.C.) do all day?

Lighten up, Rudin.

Having said all that, agreeing to something (no matter how dumb it is) and then "violating" that agreement is a dick move, for sure.

I'll try hard not to let this tragedy keep me from being productive for the rest of my work day.

Posted by: Slash at December 5, 2011 3:58 PM

I agree with Yossarian. A) the whole idea of an embargo is just stupid. It's not going to hurt the movie by letting a review out early. That makes no sense.

B) However, an embargo was still in place. Denby was an idiot in not following the rules clearly set out no matter what the reason was.

They're both wrong in what they did, and to be honest? That's about the extent of the sh*t I give about this because the one thing I got out of this is that A) both are dick heads, and B) the movie is great! Can't wait to see it!

Posted by: ArT at December 5, 2011 4:25 PM

Except that Yossarian does not believe "They're both wrong in what they did".

I think the language of Rudin's response is a bit melodramatic and that makes him look silly. And I while respect the right of anonymous internet commenters to question the wisdom and efficacy of movie studio marketing campaigns (despite the fact that pretty much everyone who does this underestimates weight of the decisions being made and the impact those marketing campaigns have on the profitability of the film) my point is that your opinions re: "the embargo" do not mitigate the dick move pulled by Rudin/the New Yorker.

Rudin is wrong in what he did, and an asshole.

Denby did nothing wrong, though you may think he is being a bit of an asshole or drama queen by creating the embargo or in his response to its violation by Rudin the hack (eye of the beholder).

Posted by: Yossarian at December 5, 2011 6:48 PM

God this is brilliant, it's like watching two drunk drivers crash into each other. Usually it would be a bad thing, but they're both such complete and utter cock holes that you can just sit back and appreciate them fucking each other over.

Posted by: Ben at December 5, 2011 7:23 PM

This is why I'm glad Pajiba eschews these kind of "special favors" and advance screenings and whatnot bullshit. There's no question about Pajiba playing games with directors in return for early access or any other kind of access.

Not sucking up here, just saying we ought to be appreciative of what we have, and I'm kind of disappointed to learn that Denby and TNY, to which I have a subscription, play this game, thought I highly respect Denby as a critic.

Also, The New Yorker that arrived in my mailbox today contains reviews not of Fincher's movie but of "Shame" and something else, so I'm like a week behind and Fincher's embargo holds anyway, thanks to the USPS.

Posted by: , at December 5, 2011 7:41 PM

"Shame" and "Sleeping Beauty," I just remembered.

Posted by: , at December 5, 2011 7:42 PM

Gotta say I HATE the above picture. Yes, she so needs that protective, masculine arm. That pose was a cliche when Fay Wray was in pictures.

Posted by: Janis at December 5, 2011 11:38 PM

I just finished reading "TGWTDT" and thought it was above average for the genre, but really, Larsson's story (and by that I mean the story of what happened to Larsson) is far more interesting.

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Thank you very much.

Posted by: kengao at December 6, 2011 11:09 PM