Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring - 2003 | 95 mins | Drama | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Peter Webber.
Producer: Anand Tucker and Andy Paterson.
Script: Olivia Hetreed. (from the novel by Tracy Chevalier)
Cinematography: Eduardo Serra.
Editing: Kate Evans.
Production Design: Ben van Os.
Art Direction: Christina Schaffer.
Costume Design: Dien van Straalen.
Makeup Department: René Jordan, Claudine Moureaud, Joël Seiller and Jenny Shircore.
Sound Department: Arthur Graley, Julian Slater and Carlo Thoss.
Original Music: Alexandre Desplat.

The Cast

Colin Firth - Vermeer
Scarlett Johansson - Griet
Tom Wilkinson - Van Ruijven
Judy Parfitt - Maria Thins
Cillian Murphy - Pieter
Essie Davis - Catharina
Joanna Scanlan - Tanneke
Alakina Mann - Cornelia

Plot Synopsis

Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the imagined, intriguing and highly seductive story behind one of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's greatest and most enigmatic paintings. Tracy Chevalier's best selling novel is intelligently adapted for the screen by director Peter Webber, who has done a terrific job creating a lavish biographical melodrama portraying the restrained relationship between artist and his enigmatic subject.

Set in 17th century Holland, Griet (Scarlett Johansson), a tilemaker's daughter, is forced by tragedy to become a lowly serving maid for the reclusive master painter Vermeer (Colin Firth). Fascinated by his craft, she soon shows an aptitude for helping in his studio, where she finds herself drawn to the man and his world of colour and light. As she becomes part of his work, their growing intimacy spreads disruption and jealousy with his frosty pregnant wife (Judy Parfitt), manipulative mother (Essie Davis), spiteful children and lecherous patron Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), fuelling a scandal that threatens to ruin them all.