Review: Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
Robin Clifford
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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