August 14, 2005

Girl With A Pearl Earring Review

Here's another review I wrote for Netflix.

If you're the kind of person whose travels to new cities always include a museum or two, then you'll enjoy this film. The movie is like a magic window that allows the viewer to enter the world of Vermeer, the 17th century Dutch painter. The exact furniture, musical instruments, rugs, dishes, paintings, maps, and windows that formed the settings for Vermeer's own paintings are reproduced and brought to life in a manner so startlingly accurate and familiar, it caused me to gasp with astonishment and then weep with joy at the beauty of the images. The story, based on Tracy Chevalier's novel, focuses on the "girl" of the title, a maid who has a keen artistic sensibilities, but because of her class and station in life, will never realize them.