Today’s Prayer Focus
MOVIE REVIEW

Girl with a Pearl Earring

MPA Rating: PG-13-Rating (MPA) for some sexual content.

Reviewed by: Charity Bishop
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Average
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Mature-Teens Adults
Genre: Drama
Length: 1 hr. 35 min.
Year of Release: 2003
USA Release: January 9, 2004
Copyright, Lions Gate Films Copyright, Lions Gate Films Copyright, Lions Gate Films Copyright, Lions Gate Films
Relevant Issues
Copyright, Lions Gate Films

beauty

beautiful art

beautiful people

artist Johannes Vermeer

perfectionism

lust and fornication

PURITY—Should I save sex for marriage? Answer

How can I deal with temptations? Answer

Sex, Love and Relationships
Learn how to make your love the best it can be. Christian answers to questions about sex, marriage, sexual addictions, and more. Valuable resources for Christian couples, singles and pastors.
Featuring Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Cillian Murphy, Essie Davis, Alakina Mann
Director Anand Tucker
Peter Webber
Producer Andrew Paterson, Anand Tucker, Philip Erdoes
Distributor

This film has been deemed highly controversial by many Christian critics for its subject matter, but on careful observation “Girl With a Pearl Earring” is nothing it has been accused of. It’s a gently moving tale about art. We know very little about the true story behind the painting that inspired this film (and the corresponding novel by Tracy Chevalier), so it’s primarily a work of fiction but does center around a real-life artist.

After her father is forced out of his kiln-work by sudden blindness, young Griet (Scarlett Johansson) is forced to find employment in an effort to help support her family. She is brought into the household of Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth), a famous local artist popular for his unusual techniques.

The head of a large Catholic family and a perfectionist by nature, Johannes struggles to keep his family financially independent. He is an artist, a solitary man disinclined to enjoy company around the fireside or friendly chats on street side corners. He is not a businessman, leaving such tactics to his pipe-smoking mother-in-law. In fact, Griet does not even see him for several days after her arrival. Kept busy in the kitchens with linen washing, food preparation, and quick trips to the local butchery, she is enthralled when asked to tend the cleaning of his art studio. Nothing must be disturbed, she is cautioned. Leave everything just as it is, for he is painting.

She is intrigued by the craftsmanship of his nimble fingers, their ability to create texture, light, and shadows. The painting is finished and shown off to its buyer, their single patron (Tom Wilkinson), whose taste runs to young ladies.

Desiring to dangle his “pet artist” on a string as punishment for taking so long with the painting, Van Ruijven declines commissioning another, leaving the artist with no muse. One afternoon while cleaning the studio windows, Griet inspires in Johannes a new work of art, a young woman standing in the sunlight. As she watches the painting unfold and even contributes to its increasing perfection, Griet is lured into her employer’s world of color and texture.

He teaches her how to mix his paints. This forces added work to her already hectic duties around the house, but she does it both to please him and for her own enjoyment. They are forming a unique attachment, one that could be potentially explosive.

Van Ruijven now wants another painting. He has seen Johannes’ interest in Griet and desires her to be the subject. Johannes cannot afford to slight his patron, but to allow such a thing would damage Griet’s reputation beyond recovery.

“Girl With a Pearl Earring” doesn’t move rapidly, but gracefully manages to captivate its audience with the same tranquil beauty of Vermeer’s masterpiece. Not only is it glorious to look at, the story is intriguing, and we become fond of the characters and their various plights, from Griet’s struggle with her emotions and independence to her employer’s withdrawn mannerisms.

The attraction here is not only a beautiful period film, but also the acting. Scarlett Johansson received a Golden Globe nomination for her quiet portrayal of Griet, Tom Wilkinson astonishes us with his abominable villain, and Colin Firth is exceptional as the eccentric, obsessive painter. He has an uncanny sexual appeal even when appearing in such scruffy attire. The production is very tasteful with lovely lighting and texture. The flow is interrupted by some unsavory content, but it’s kept mercifully tame. Some reviewers have been offended by the “tension” between Johannes and Griet, but to me it never went beyond an artist’s obsession with recreating beauty. I never found anything lustful or wrong in it.

Johannes has a wife and family, and is a good father. He is very affectionate with his wife. He spends time alone with Griet in a professional capacity but never makes any advances. He comforts her with a partial embrace after piercing her ear, but this is the only subtle flirtation present. Each time they come near touching, even merely their hands on the table, both pull apart.

The movie could have very easily earned a PG rating were it not for brief, unnecessary sexual content. Griet and the butcher’s son are shown fornicating in the stables. Conversations about Van Ruijven’s affairs with women are often spoken of. He impregnated one servant who sat with him in an earlier portrait, and wants his way with Griet. He corners her in an alley and tries to unsuccessfully rape her. (He doesn’t get any further than shoving her against a wall and tearing her dress.) He is fond of using double innuendoes and coarse vernacular, and attempts to convince Johannes’ wife that he is involved with Griet.

Violence is mild, consisting of Griet slapping one of the children for wiping dirty fingers delibrately on clean sheets, and the child later being punished for theft. (Her hands are struck with a willow rod, unseen.) Griet’s ear is pierced with mildly bloody results. There’s no language except for several crude expressions and two mild abuses of deity.

Profiled rather unfairly by some reviewers, “Girl With a Pearl Earring” is one of the most mesmerizing films I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing. It will not appeal to everyone, and the mild content issues to provide a problem for family viewing, but it’s an intriguing story with a unique premise and ambiguous ending. I enjoy movies that go against the grain, and this one dares to be different. It is not a story about lust, but about beauty. Beautiful souls, beautiful art, beautiful people. Best of all, it captures the very spirit and nature of the book, and gives us a glimpse to the “what if” of one of the most mysterious and haunting paintings of all time.

Violence: Minor / Profanity: Minor / Sex/Nudity: Moderate


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Positive—Truly, it is no surprise that a creative writer would want to pen the beauty and mystery that lies within and surrounds the masterpieces of Johannes Vermeer. The rich colors and seemingly tangible subjects on each canvas tempt the senses and the imagination—especially with the fact that none of Vermeer’s models have been positively identified, so one’s imagination can go wild with fictional possibilities.

Tracy Chevalier wrote the incredibly lush, detailed novel, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and after a time, Hollywood took note of the beautiful manuscript and set about filming it, attempting to create the same sensation as Chevalier, but falling a tad short, as most Hollywood endeavors tend to do.

The movie, like the novel, is set in Delft, Holland in 1665, where the audience is introduced to Griet, a young woman who must work as a maid in the house of Johannes Vermeer to support her family after a kiln explosion blinded her father. While working in the Vermeer household, Griet and the introverted painter become friends and eventually Vermeer begins to teach Griet about color and light and how to bring life to a blank canvas.

Their friendship evolves into something intimate—a romance tinged with forbidden passion and Vermeer, along with the encouragement of a monstrously sexual nobleman and faithful patron, decides to make Griet the subject of his next painting, which would ultimately become his most famous.

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” is filmed with careful attention to detail, color and historical authenticity. The social and cultural aspects of the film are fascinating, and the roles of Johannes Vermeer and Griet are brilliantly played out by Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. The beauty the audience witnesses, however, cannot conceal the intense sensuality and progressively sexual relationship that begins to evolve between Griet and Vermeer (who is married, with a colony of children scampering about outside the confines of his paint-pot-littered studio).

The sexuality of Vermeer’s wealthy patron, Van Ruijven, is offensive and, in one instance, violent, while the love-making scene between Griet and Pieter (a butcher’s son, whom she obviously pretends is Vermeer in an attempt to satiate her appetite for the painter) is empty and brief, and includes a lusty, slight undress of the characters. This is not a film to be viewed by children or even young teenagers. The lust, sex, sexual references, and Vermeer’s entertainment on thoughts of adultery are disturbing. It is truly disappointing that this film (and book) with so much beauty, has to smudge itself with sexuality whenever the sensuality of it was enough.

On a positive note, there is a redemptive quality in the end of the movie just as in the book, and I felt relieved over the outcome of various situations whenever I finished watching the film. I cannot say I regret reading the book or watching the movie, because I feel as a Christian and artist, secular productions must be viewed with the knowledge that they are SECULAR, not Christian, and therefore will contain worldly elements that I may not agree with or even be comfortable. Yet, I do feel that this film, like the painting by Johannes Vermeer, has much beauty and humanity to offer an audience that should view it with the wisdom of serpents (Matthew 10:16). Violence: Moderate / Profanity: Moderate / Sex/nudity: Moderate
My Ratings: [Offensive/4]
Amber Walker
Movie Critics
…Although lust and power are key themes, and sexual tension propels the story, Johannes and Griet do not consummate their relationship. (So this film could have been a lot worse.) Still, at its essence “Girl With a Pearl Earring” is about a married father of 11 lusting after his teenage maid… …celebrating middle-aged lechery, and embracing inappropriate relationships and lustful thoughts…
Bob Waliszewski, Plugged In
…the movie’s only real failing is that it never develops a terribly compelling story…
Christopher Null, filmcritic.com
…an earnest, obvious melodrama with no soul, filled with the longing silences that come after a sigh…
Elvis Mitchell, New York Times
…does many things right, and that places it among the year’s best period pieces…
James Berardinelli, ReelViews
…a superior British costume drama that expertly mixes art history with romantic fiction… serious, intelligent drama and gentle erotic tension…
Susan Hodgetts, BBC Films
…The odd, gentle relationship that develops between him and his soon-to-be model is a nonstandard romance, powerful and true, without a sexy situation or treacly sentiment in sight…
Kelly Borgeson, Premiere Magazine