Girl With A Pearl Earring

This film surprised me. It would not usually cross my field of view, as costume dramas are generally my sisters’ area of viewing. However, Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth drew me into the plight of the major protagonists the Maid Griet and the Master Painter Vermeer.

The film is adapted from the best selling novel by Tracy Chevalier, unravelling the mystery behind the Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer’s greatest painting of the same title.

Griet a seventeen-year-old maid employed by the Vermeer family, after her father suffered damage to his eyes, gains the trust of the Vermeer whilst cleaning his painting studio. This infuriates his wife as she does not understand her husband’s paintings or why they take him so long to complete. Through her close relationship with Vermeer Griet learns about making paint, about light she even influences the composition of his work.

As their relationship grows it becomes obvious to more members of the household. Vermeer’s mother in law, who runs the house, sees that the young maid is helping to inspire Vermeer and she encourages this relationship as it means he is producing new paintings more quickly and therefore more money for the ever growing family. However, one of Vermeer’s children sees what is happening and contrives to spoil the relationship through theft and eventually informing her mother of what she sees.

Griet is also developing a relationship with the local butcher who appears to give her the closeness that the she cannot pursue with her employer. But a third man has more influence on the outcome than anyone else, the man who buys the paintings, Van Ruijven, commissions Vermeer to paint Griet alone therefore encouraging him to spend more time with her.

The painting of Griet wearing Vermeer’s wife’s pearl earring brings a dramatic conclusion.

This film was beautifully shot; there is very little movement within the frame each scene is constructed liked a painting. The action is played out through looks and gestures. It develops the relationship between master and maid quickly and allows the audience to feel what they are feeling. Other characters such as the wife are easy to dislike. She sees herself as a wronged woman. Her husband’s affections for her are waning, yet she is not a sympathetic character. The mother in law, who would usually be “the evil” character, in the eyes of the audience, is an accomplice to the goal of finishing the painting yet her loyalties lie with the family not with any individual within it.

This film raises the question of whether Vermeer loved Griet, or whether Griet loved Vermeer. That is something that audience members can decide for themselves. It answers one question where such a remarkable painting came from and the reasons for its existence.

This film will find an audience such as my sisters but I would encourage those who would not usually seek out this type of film to give it look it might surprise you. You might surprise yourself.

Pip Johnstone