When I first saw this movie I hadn’t read the book on which it is based.
I have just watched it again after being hugely impressed and deeply moved by Isherwood’s flawless novella.
Tom Ford’s expert adaptation is faithful to the story yet makes key changes; some for better, some for worse.
Note that this post contains spoilers.Don't say I didn't warn you!
I read and admired Tracy Chevalier’s novel when it was first published in 1999 but was never strongly drawn to the movie adaptation.
I had serious misgivings about the cast and a few lukewarm reviews put me off too. Surely Scarlett Johansson was too sexy to play the young girl and Colin Firth too English to play Vermeer.
Having finally got round to seeing it on DVD, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the skilled way Peter Webber captured the detail and atmosphere of painter’s household in 17th century Delft and of how faithful he was to the novel. This is all the more impressive as it was the British director’s debut feature film.
Chevalier’s book works both as an examination of Vermeer’s meticulous pictures made of light and as a sympathetic study of the plight of women who were resigned to a hard life of servitude while being at the mercy of their randy masters.
Firth ogles her like a ravenous wolf hound waiting for the moment to pounce. Tom Wilkinson as Vermeer’s patron Van Ruijven is less reticent and makes his move while she’s hanging out the washing. By strength of will and good fortune Griet manages to avoid becoming a ruined maid and finds love among her peers by winning the heart of butcher’s boy Pieter (Cillian Murphy) but not before she has become the subject of Vermeer’s portrait.
Johansson as Griet has the scrubbed and pasty look of a young nun but still manages to look stunning and convince you that she would arouse lustful thoughts. Her resemblance to the girl in Vermeer’s portrait is uncanny.
The story of a servant with a pearl earring and a moody Dutch painter obviously offers less scope for action than a murder mystery so those who criticise the movie for being slow-moving are missing the point.
This is not a plot driven thriller but a detailed character study, and a very good one at that. It works by creating an intense and claustrophobic world within a world. There are no bodice ripping scenes but the sexual tension is ever-present – when Vermeer makes Griet lick her lips not once, not twice but three times this is more sexually charged than any explicit romp among the easels would have been.
John Le Carré’s celebrated novel was, by all accounts, confusing enough as a seven part BBC TV series (starring Alec Guinness) but is doubly so when condensed into a two-hour movie.
For those, like me, who have never read the book, the burden of incomprehensibility threatens to remove any hope of enjoyment.
Who is the mole? Who’s telling the truth? Who can we trust? Why has Benedict ‘Sherlock’ Cumberbatch got such a stupid hair style?
These are a few of the many questions you will ask yourself in the course of this tale of betrayal and double-dealing.
The trick, I would suggest, is to relax and enjoy the stylish spectacle secure in the knowledge that a condensed story outline will be available at Wikipediia at the click of a mouse when it’s all over. Continue reading
"G...g.got anything by The Sex Pistols?"
The Royal Family must be very chuffed with the success of The King’s Speech. It shows the Queen’s Mom and Dad in a most humane light and even a committed anti-royalist like me was moved by George VI’s battle to overcome the debilitating stammer.
Needless to say Colin Firth is faultless in this role and if he doesn’t win the Oscar for this there is no justice. His double act with the equally sublime Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist Lionel Logue is what makes the movie.
Tom Hooper’s direction doesn’t have to be flashy – he just has to make sure nothing draws the attention too far from these central performances. Thankfully he succeeds.
The music too, cannot be too fussy or overwhelming. Alexandre Desplat , is a solid and conservative choice to provide the soundtrack. Continue reading
Michael Winterbottom’s movie plays expertly, even manipulatively, upon parental fears.
I watched it in a Hitchcockian state of constant anxiety. The tension stems from the feeling that something tragic is about to happen to the two vulnerable young girls at the heart of the story as single parent Colin Firth looks on helplessly. Continue reading
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