How much do aesthetic choices matter?

Spoiler alert for those who think you can discuss a film without giving anything away.

There are 2 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movies. They're both based on a book. One movie is realistic, in a foreign language. Director is Danish, but it lists it as a Swedish movie on IMBd. It was filmed in Spain and Sweden. The Hollywood version used Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.

The second one is a Hollywood slick remake. It almost feels like a magical realism version versus a realism version.

IMBd gives the Danish version a 7.8. The slick Hollywood ones gets a 7.8 too. We want realism and we want magic.

A 4th medium, aural, I heard the book on tape while driving to work. And it's in translation, the story has made one more transformation. So the 4 different versions, text, audio book, movie and movie, and in a way the same story. 

I see different choices, dialogue, ways of visualizing text into 2 different violence incidents in the subway, two different rape scenes, two different sex scenes. The Hollywood version of sex is soft porn, and the Swedish version isn't for your titillation. Some things are made explicit, like her photographic memory is explicit in the Swedish version but shown in the Hollywood version. Different torture scenes, different chase and accident scenes. In one Harriet lives in Australia and in the other she lives in London. Those choices mean something. Different visuals, for sure.

Different romantic ending doesn't feel significant to me, though I prefer the Swedish one.

You could say the story versions are very different between the movies. Things put here in this one, are put there in that one. Honestly I can't do a close reading of either, I watched the movies superficially. 

This movie also has me thinking about the novel/movie A Very Long Engagement. It too had a complicated plot that you just had to tolerate not knowing what is going on. I have read that book and seen the French movies from 2004.

In a way The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the perfect movie for our times when wealthy people cover up their fascism, white supremacy, religious twisting, sadism, and coverups. Confronting evil is a theme for our times. The price we pay for abuse and trauma.

I read about the problem of Native American women disappearing. I imagine there are people like Martin Vanger out there taking them.

I have to confess that I don't always follow the plot. I feel like it's ok to lose contact with making sense. That has helped me get through a lot of literature. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. When I write I want it all to make sense but it can't. Something must be hidden on purpose because it's a linear narrative. We can't know everything at once, even if there are flashbacks and flash forwards.

I once read about a book reviewer who started in the middle of a book and read all around. I thought that was crazy at the time, but it makes sense to me now.