Girl with a Pearl Earring

Released: 2003
Drama
Director: Peter Webber
Starring: Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson
Running Time: 100 minutes
Rated: PG-13

The breakdown:  Johannes Vermeer paints a picture of his teenage maid that he is falling in love with, even though he's already married with several children.  Totally a work of fiction based on a book written by Tracy Chevalier with the same title.

A young girl is forced to leave her family to help them make money since her father is blind and cannot work any longer.  Her mother finds a residence for her to be a maid in, in town.  She starts working for a large family with many children, a wife who is always pregnant and Johannes Vermeer as the head of the household.  The maid is naive and quiet, but does her job well despite being watched by everyone.  Her beauty and youth make the Mrs. very uncomfortable and when Johannes makes her his assistant, the wife really gets jealous.
The painter and maid spend lots of alone time together in the attic where he does all his work.  They are attracted to each other, but there's another young man who's the butcher's son who likes this maid as well.  The butcher's son warns her not to be seduced by the older man.
Unfortunately the painter sees she has a good eye for color and understands the painter a lot better than his own wife.  He teaches her a lot about how color paint is made and where it comes from. Eventually, the richest man in town notices the young maid as well and wants a picture done of her with intentions of having her for himself after the painting is done.
The eldest girl in the house wants this new maid gone, so does the wife and mother in law, so she has the deck stacked against her.  Vermeer has her sit for him, borrowing his wife's pearl earrings for her to use in the picture.  Secrets finally come to light at the end of the film and the conclusion I'll leave for you guys to discover.

Not a lot is know about the "Master of Light" Johannes Vermeer.  I studied his paintings in college and was amazed at how well he could truly control light in his works.  His nick name is given with good reason, a lot of his paintings look photo realistic as far as the sunlight is concerned.  "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a well known piece of Vermeer's and there is a lot of mystery surrounding it.  No one knows who the girl is or where she came from, but the look on her face certainly tells a lot to the viewer.  Vermeer might have lusted after this girl, or had an affair, but there is a sense of intimacy there on her face.  Truth is, there's not a lot of information of Vermeer's life and how he was as a person, but the speculation of who this young girl is, was the inspiration for the book that this movie was based on.

It was an interesting idea for a movie.
3 out of 5 for being good, but not spectacular.