“Girl With a Pearl Earring”
Directed by Peter Webber
Lions Gate Films
Based on Tracy Chevalier’s bestselling novel, “Girl
With a Pearl Earring” is a stunning, seductive film
adaptation of the imagined story behind Johannes Vermeer’s
most famous painting. If Scarlett Johansson was not a bona fide
star after this fall’s “Lost in Translation,” she
is now.
Johansson plays Griet, a young Dutch girl forced to work as a
maid after her father, a tile painter, is blinded in an accident.
Griet takes work in the home of Vermeer (Colin Firth), who soon
finds that his employee understands his art much better than his
wife. And the rest, as Vermeer’s patron Master van Ruijven
(played to slimy perfection by Tom Wilkinson) says in one scene, is
“master and maid, a tune we all know.”
In a performance that is at once both subtle and commanding,
Johansson’s Griet is a study in how sexuality and passion can
be conveyed without removing a single piece of clothing. Her every
sigh, tentative glance, and bow of her head speak volumes, as she
captures the repressed emotions of a young woman who knows her
place in life and yet dares to dream of something more.
Nearly every man in this film appears to have fallen in love
with Griet, whether on or off camera, and it only adds to the deep
undercurrent of unexplored desire. Director Peter Webber just
can’t shoot enough close-ups of Johansson’s expressive
face, and the brilliant cinematographer, Eduardo Serra, has
composed a palette of light and rich color that gives nearly the
entire film the feel of a Vermeer painting. Serra’s ability
to adoringly attach light to Johansson’s face is enough to
make any actress green with envy. She is simply stunning to look at
in this film.
Colin Firth plays Vermeer as a sort of resigned captive, quietly
accepting his lot in life as a patient, master painter who did not
marry quite as well as he had hoped. With artists so often
portrayed in films as either raging lunatics or dreamy drug
addicts, his contemplative Vermeer is indeed refreshing.
As the shrewd and manipulative mother-in-law, veteran actress
Judy Parfitt nears perfection. Desperately clinging to the hope
that her painstakingly slow-working son-in-law will be able to
continue to provide the kind of lifestyle to which she has become
accustomed, Parfitt shows both the desperation and grief behind her
character’s betrayal of her own daughter. With a less
confident performer, the role could easily have fallen into a flat,
wicked stepmother type of villain, but Parfitt manages to find the
humanity within the desperate acts of a desperate woman.
Webber has crafted an elegant, deeply satisfying film that,
though lacking a clear ending, should be a serious Oscar
contender.
-Sommer Mathis