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MOVIE: The Girl in the Spider’s Web

STARRING: Claire Foy, Stephen Merchant, Christoher Convery

RATING: SHOWING AT: MA15+

THE Girl in the Spider’s Web is both a sequel and a soft reboot – this time with The Crown’s Claire Foy as the title character.

Stieg Larsson’s hugely popular Millennium books, featuring the taciturn, vengeful and morally compromised anti-hero Lisbeth Salander, was first adapted for the screen in its native Sweden with Noomi Rapace and the late Michael Nyqvist.

Then American director David Fincher came along in 2011 and adapted the first book in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.

Some years after the events of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth (Foy), more isolated than before, is contracted by a former NSA employee, Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), to steal back a program he created that can remotely access nuclear codes.

Hiding out in Sweden with his young, genius son August (Christopher Convery), Balder now thinks this program is too dangerous is anyone’s hands.

Possession of the program makes Lisbeth and Balder a target for several parties with a keen interest, including Edwin Neeham (Lakeith Stanfield), the NSA agent tasked to retrieve it, and a shadow criminal organisation called the Spiders.

What Lisbeth doesn’t realise at first is she has a deeply personal connection to the Spiders: a link that exposes her past trauma.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web is interested in the cycle of abuse and the effect it has on those trapped within it. The spider’s web, with its barely visible gossamer strands, binds people and their anguish.