Girl with a Pearl Earring (film)

Girl with a Pearl Earring is a 2003 romantic drama film directed by Peter Webber. The screenplay was adapted by screenwriter Olivia Hetreed, based on the novel Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. Scarlett Johansson stars as Griet, a young 17th-century servant in the household of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (played by Colin Firth) at the time he painted Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) in the city of Delft in Holland. Other cast members include Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, and Judy Parfitt.
Hetreed read the novel before its publication, and her husband's production company convinced Chevalier to sell the film rights. Initially, the production was to feature Kate Hudson as Griet with Mike Newell directing. Hudson withdrew shortly before filming began, however, and the film was placed in hiatus until the hire of Webber, who re-initiated the casting process.
In his feature film debut, Webber sought to avoid employing traditional characteristics of the period film drama. In a 2003 interview with IGN, he said, "What I was scared of is ending up with something that was like Masterpiece Theatre, [that] very polite Sunday evening BBC kind of thing, and I [was] determined to make something quite different from that..." Cinematographer Eduardo Serra used distinctive lighting and colour schemes similar to Vermeer's paintings.
Released on 12 December 2003 in North America and on 16 January 2004 in the United Kingdom, Girl with a Pearl Earring earned a worldwide gross of $31.4 million. It garnered a mostly positive critical reception, with a 72% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Critics generally applauded the film's visuals and performances while questioning elements of its story. The film was subsequently nominated for ten British Academy Film Awards, three Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.

Plot

Griet (Scarlett Johansson) is a shy girl living in the Dutch Republic in 1665. Her father, a Delftware painter, has recently gone blind, rendering him unable to work and putting his family in a precarious financial situation. To help matters, Griet is sent to work as a maid in the household of famed painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth). Griet works hard, almost wordlessly, in the lowest position in a harsh hierarchy. She does her best to adjust, despite the unkind treatment from Vermeer's daughter Cornelia. While she is on a routine shopping trip outside the house, a butcher's son, Pieter (Cillian Murphy), notices Griet and is drawn to her. However, she is slow to return his affections as their relationship develops.
As Griet cleans Vermeer's studio, which his wife Catharina (Essie Davis) never enters, the painter begins to converse with her and encourages her appreciation of painting, light and color. Vermeer gives her lessons in mixing paints and other tasks, taking care to keep this secret from his wife, who would react with anger and jealousy if she found out that her husband was spending time with Griet. In contrast, Vermeer's pragmatic mother-in-law, Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt), sees Griet as useful to Vermeer's career.
Vermeer's rich patron, Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), notices Griet on a visit to the Vermeer household and asks the painter if he will give her up to work in his own house, a situation which "ruined" his former girl-maid. Vermeer refuses, but agrees to paint a portrait of Griet for Van Ruijven.
As Vermeer secretly works on the eponymous painting, Catharina cannot help but notice something is amiss. Her growing disdain for Griet becomes more apparent, spurred on by Van Ruijven's deliberate suggestions of an improper relationship between Vermeer and the young maid. A conflicted Griet must deal with her growing fascination with Vermeer and his talent,and subsequently fend off Van Ruijven, who attempts to rape her in the courtyard. Later, when Catharina is out for the day, her mother hands Griet her daughter's pearl earrings, and asks Vermeer to finish the painting. At the final painting session, Vermeer pierces Griet's left earlobe so she can wear one of the earrings for the portrait. The tension heightens considerably when Griet reacts to the pain, and Vermeer tenderly caresses her face. Griet then runs to Pieter to be consoled, and presumably distracted from her thoughts of Vermeer. They embrace and make love in a barn, where Pieter proposes marriage, but Griet unexpectedly leaves. She then returns the earrings to Catharina's mother.
Later, Catharina flies into a rage upon discovering Griet used her earrings. She storms into the studio, accuses her mother of complicity, and demands Vermeer show her the commissioned portrait. Offended by the intimate nature of the painting, Catharina dismisses it as "obscene," and tearfully asks why Vermeer won't paint her. When Vermeer responds, "Because you don't understand," she tries but fails to destroy the painting. She then banishes Griet from the house forever, to which Vermeer does not object, and lets Griet depart. Later, Griet is visited by Vermeer's house cook Tanneke, who comes bearing her a gift: the blue headscarf she wore in the painting, wrapped around Catharina's pearl earrings.
The film ends with a slow reveal of the real-life painting, "Girl with a Pearl Earring."