Beautiful Brushstrokes
But Girl is a Very Still Portrait

In the Dutch town of Delft, a painter named Johannes Vermeer became a master best known for his sensitivity for light and color. Although much is not known about Vermeer, his legend lives on through his paintings. Only 35 works attributed to him remain. One of his best known is Girl with a Pearl Earring, the subject of the speculative novel by Tracy Chevalier and a new film by director Peter Webber.

Scarlett Johansson stars as Griet, the daughter of a tile painter who is crippled in a kiln explosion. To support her family, she is forced to become a maid in the house of a wealthy family. Though the conditions are less than ideal, she accepts her situation and dutifully cooks and cleans. The master of the house is a perfectionist painter named Vermeer (Colin Firth) who prowls around his studio where others in the house (including his wife) fear to tread.

Griet is soon given the task of cleaning the studio, but rather than enraging the master painter she stuns him with her understanding of light and color. The bond with her new employer is complicated by his difficult wife (Essie Davis) and their spiteful daughter. But Griet has also captured the eye of Vermeer's patron, Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson). As Griet tries to please her master, placate her mistress, and avoid the clutches of Van Ruijven, her simple beauty helps to inspire Vermeer's masterpiece.

What emerges from Webber's direction is a beautiful film that tells a satisfying (even if completely fictitious) tale. Sadly, for all the film's attention to period costuming and art direction, it fails to convey to the viewer the passion and intensity of the artist. There is no fault in the cinematography of the movie. Every shot is painstakingly arranged, with a contrast of light and darkness that makes the entire film seem like one of Vermeer's paintings. If only the script were as well crafted.

The story of Girl with a Pearl Earring is told without detail. Many scenes are silent, and one begins to feel that the book was required reading before seeing the film. For example, the film tells nothing of Griet's father. That he is a tile painter is mentioned only briefly. Nothing is spoken of his accident, leaving only his scarred body to tell the story. Likewise, the relationship with the head maid Tanneke (Joanna Scanlan) is never clearly friendly or adversarial.

The film moves slowly, more so than necessary, and the resulting payoff is a cheap disappointment. The relationship between Griet and Vermeer plays like a series of vignettes that don't tell a connected story. The actual painting process is almost completely edited out, leaving a gap that makes the audience wonder what (if anything) Griet and Vermeer discussed during those long hours when she modeled for him.

Previews for the film and the film's poster suggest that a romance blossomed between Griet and the master painter. But Girl with a Pearl Earring is not a romance or a movie about an illicit affair between painter and model. It seems ironic that in a story filled with speculation the one suggestion hinted at most is the one that is never explored. Any relationship between Griet and Vermeer must, like the rest of the story, remain speculation.

MY RATING: 6 out of 10.

RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 95 min.