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Film Review
Girl with a Pearl Earring
San Sebastian International
Film Festival (2003)
Starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson
Directed by Peter Webber
Review by Jenni van Wagningen
Griet is a quiet and very beautiful young girl from a poor Protestant background in 17th century Holland. When her father loses his sight and the family needs financial assistance she becomes a maid in the household of the Catholic painter Johannes Vermeer in Leiden. The home is full of barely-concealed tensions between husband and wife, with the mother-in-law in a position of control. Griet’s presence gives rise to pettiness and jealousies when both mother and daughter become aware of the special attention Vermeer begins to pay to Griet as she shows a shy interest in his work. The intense, simmering and almost silent mutual attraction which unfolds between the artist and the young maid is the substance of the story and provides a fictitious backdrop to the famous painting.
The movie is based on Tracey Chevalier’s best-selling book and is a rare example of a movie very much adding to and enhancing the written word with a finely crafted visual dimension. While both the setting and the characters receive a rather skimpy treatment in the book - this rather disappointed me - in the movie they come to life.
With her large expressive eyes, ripe lips and clear skin, Johansson is particularly well cast as the ‘girl with the pearl earring’ and the brooding and dark-eyed Firth makes a convincing Vermeer. The social trappings of the period – the full and noisy markets, the stark domestic interiors, the clothing and jewellery - are also presented in full and authentic detail.
However, it is the evocative interplay of light and colour in every scene which makes this movie so startlingly beautiful and one to linger in the memory long afterwards. The viewer needs to be patient with what is a slow-moving story and to be prepared to watch for subtleties in facial expressions and the interplay of light and shadow.
Girl with a pearl earring departs from the normal plot lines of so many contemporary movies by not portraying an inevitable slide into gratuitous sexual infidelity. The intensity of the physical attraction between Griet and Vermeer is almost palpable, yet it remains unconsummated. While the scene in which Vermeer pierces Griet’s ear in preparation for the painting has sexual overtones of defloration and penetration it still remains subtle and understated.
From an aesthetic point of view this movie is refreshingly lovely – and this is not something that can be said about many of its contemporaries. Those with a natural interest in art will not want to miss it and it may even help the viewer appreciate Vermeer’s work with greater discernment.
Some people have been moved to tears by this movie; others, I have discovered, have been bored to tears. It will not be to everyone’s taste. In fact – dare I say it – Girl with a pearl earring is for the ‘discriminating’ movie-goer who wants more than a cheap diet of non-stop thrills and coarse humour, and would for a change like to observe, reflect and contemplate.
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