Delayed Reaction: Girl with a Pearl Earring

Premise: A fictionalized account of how Vermeer painted his classic painting that gives the film its title.

 

Oh yeah. It's Scarlett Johansson's other 2003 movie. She really built her reputation that year.

After making an impression in 2001 with Ghost World, her big breakout was 2003's Lost In Translation. She paired that later in the year with the more classically Oscar-baity Girl with a Pearl Earring. Even big Oscar fans have to remind themselves that she didn't end up with a nomination for either movie, but that combo established her as the next big thing. She appeared in several movies over the next few years. Some were critically applauded like her Woody Allen movies or The Prestige. It really wasn't until she joined the MCU in 2010 that you could justify why she was so famous. And she's only now getting her own movie in the MCU. Really, take out the Marvel movies, and Johansson had a very Angelina Jolie career for a long time. It's never really mattered though, because 2003 set the public narrative. And good for her.

 

There is a reason why Girl with a Pearl Earring is her "other" 2003 movie. It's a little stuffy and dull. Colin Firth and Johansson's sexual chemistry, I guess, was supposed to sustain the movie. Every scene with them begin distant to each other was supposed to be tense and charged. I didn't really get that though. The movie looks good. Nice costumes. Good attention to period detail. The cinematography even kind of feels like I'm watching a painting, which partly helped with the stillness. I was intrigued, because, thanks to the excellent documentary Tim's Vermeer, Vermeer is a painter I know a little about. However, there's only so much story they can eek out of "Vermeer paints a portrait of a house servant and his wife gets jealous and upset although nothing happens between them".

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend