The most important shot in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is when Mikael (Daniel Craig) leans over Lisbeth (Rooney Mara) to find something on his computer and clumsily uses the trackpad to open the wrong applications mumbling to himself while struggling to find the right folder in macOS, all while Lisbeth watches him with a look of impatient contempt. Mikael is a skilled investigator but the core of the film is about Lisbeth and showing us what kind of mind is required to traverse the 21st Century information landscape of the internet, SQL databases, digital banking, and boxes of restricted physical archives.
Moreover, David Fincher meticulously interweaves the seemingly disparate systems of the internet, patriarchy, and fascism to show it’s all the same damn thing. It’s all one system built on the foundations of misogyny and violence and the only way to swim in those waters and survive without drowning is to be broken to begin with.