Girl With A Pearl Earring Review
by Robin Clifford (robin AT reelingreviews DOT com)November 18th, 2003
"Girl with a Pearl Earring"
First timer director Peter Webber, with veteran lenser Eduardo Serra, has created the most visually beautiful entry in the San Sebastian Film Festival with his fictional telling of the human interaction that led to Dutch art master Johannes Vermeer's most famous work, "Girl with a Pearl Earring."
This period piece, based on Tracy Chevalier's novel and set in Delft, Holland in 1665, tells of young Griet (Scarlett Johannson), hired as a maid into the household of the famous artist, Vermeer (Colin Firth). The girl, assigned to clean her employer's work area, shows an uncanny sense of light and color and Vermeer teaches her about his art. The artiste's mother-in-law recognizes the spark that Griet ignites in Johannes and she encourages the relationship in hope of increasing his meager output and, as such, the family's fortune. Vermeer's wife is not quite so taken with the idea.
The machinations of the patronage system, personified by the wicked Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), dictate Vermeer's life and the sponsor manipulates things so that Griet is deigned to be the secret subject of the artist. What cost this imposes on Vermeer's wife, his children and, most of all, Griet, is what Webber and his team examine and present.
While "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a solid first entry for its director it is, foremost, a film of stunning visual treatment. Eduardo Serra's lens uncannily duplicates the artistic work of Vermeer, making the film's many beautiful scenes take on the look and texture of paintings. Serra also succeeds in making Scarlett Johannson as beautiful as she ever could be - the young actress looks incredibly like the maid in the original work.
"Girl" is a satisfying film, with Olivia Hetreed adapting the fictional work by Tracy Chevalier, and benefits from its realistic feeling production design. The talented cast do a fine job in imbuing dimension to their characters with only Wilkinson and Cillian Murphy, as the butcher boy and Griet's love interest, feeling false in their roles.
It is not often that you see a film that has the look of a moving painting. The beautifully rendered "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is such a film and I give it an A-.
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