Girl with a Pearl Earring ('03) 2003, Rated PG-13 Lions Gate

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A Lions Gate release. Written by Olivia Hetreed; directed by Peter Webber; starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Released to DVD on May 4, 2004.

When I screened writer/director Peter Weir’s Master and Commander, I was amazed at the precise focus of the production. The investigation of the smallest nuances of 19^th Century life was interesting to a point, but grew tiresome as the film progress. At times, Weir seemed more concerned with the nature of the details of the time rather than with moving the film’s plot forward. Fortunately, there were some explosions, battle sequences and a larger-than-life performance by Russell Crowe that helped break up the monotony of the otherwise incredibly slow moving period piece. This is relative here because Girl with a Pearl Earring is Master and Commander minus the explosions, battle sequences and any kind of magnanimous lead performance.

Adapted from author Tracy Chevalier’s novel of the same name, Girl with a Pearl Earring is the entirely fictional story of how master painter Johannes Vermeer (played here by Colin Firth) came to paint his most renowned work, the titular Girl with a Pearl Earring. Scarlett Johansson stars here as the servant girl who is featured in the painting, Griet.

Set in Holland in the 17^th Century, Girl with a Pearl Earring is a very simplistic movie. It is the story of how Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring came to be. Very little in the way of supplementary exposition or plot material takes place. Griet participates in the activities of a servant in Holland in the 16^th Century, washing, helping with the meals, supervising the Vermeer’s children and cleaning. It is the latter task that allows Griet into Vermeer’s studio to see how the (near mad) genius works. When he gets a glimpse of Griet in the early morning light, inspiration strikes and he begins to work.

Girl with a Pearl Earring, much like A Beautiful Mind, is a work of historical fiction. Nobody knows much about Vermeer that can be definitively proven. Some scholars report that he had 14 children. Some art historians believe that Vermeer painted only 30-odd paintings in his life. Others believe that he used pseudonyms or let other painters take credit for his work and that his body of work is much greater. Regardless of the inconsistencies surrounding Vermeer’s personal and professional life, this much is clear: the man was an unquestioned great when it came to field of painting. Able to capture the smallest details and tiniest light striations on canvas, Vermeer’s crowning achievement came with his painting Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The painting itself is a rather staid painting to most people who view it. It is simply the portrait of a servant. Nothing is happening in the painting. The girl is sitting still (wearing one visible pearl earring) in front of a black wall and looking at the artist. It is a slightly flippant, but nonetheless accurate, to suggest that director Peter Webber’s film encompasses the same amount of energy and excitement that Vermeer’s painting does.

The recreation of the European community of the time in Girl with a Pearl Earring is fantastic. Edwardo Serra’s lighting scheme is bold and effectively sets the tone for the project, even if Johansson’s face does appear to be an unusual shade of grey throughout the movie. However, there is nothing captivating that surrounds this stellar production design.

As was customary for servants at the time, Griet rarely speaks or voices any kind of opinions to anyone. She is, like the subject in the real-life painting, an anonymous servant about whom we know little. Chevalier and scripter Olivia Hetreed give Griet some slight backstory by including some tawdry information about her family–her father is handicapped and lives in a hut with her mother–but as a whole little information is given about any of the characters. To his credit, Webber manages to keep his audience interested even with the distinct lack of plot points and character development; a large portion of this in undoubtedly because the film looks positively sumptuous, but the effect is real nonetheless.

I can’t say that Girl with a Pearl Earring is a particularly great movie, because nothing really happens in it. Boy meets girl, boy paints girl, credits roll. There is a slight subtext of romance between Vermeer and Griet, but this is extremely subtle and also undermined because of Webber’s focus on Griet’s casual relationship with her butcher, Pieter (Cillian Murphy). Not quite a hard-hitting historical drama, not exactly an enlightening period piece and not nearly a flavorful enough film to cause excitement, Girl with a Pearl Earring is the cinematic version of a painting, with all the pluses and minuses that come with this situation. It is a testament to Webber’s style and grace that this project succeeded to the degree it did. In the hands of a lesser director, Girl with a Pearl Earring could have easily failed on a grand scale.

chris neumer

yes, it's true: Pearls are created in oysters (though technically other mollusks can produce them too) when the oyster's skin is irritated. The oyster releases a substance that surrounds the irritant and, in time, that substance hardens to become a pearl.