Erotic, hypnotic

I haven't read the novel that this film is based on, but I would imagine the author would be extremely pleased with the screen adaptation of Girl With A Pearl Earring. Instead of an over-wrought, melodramatic and heavy-handed piece of drivel, we are treated to the exact opposite: a magnificently restrained, hypnotic and sublime work of near-perfect art.

This is a movie about what is not being said - a movie about nuance, layers of nuance; the opening shot of the onion being peeled is not coincidental, nor is the way Colin Firth (extraordinary as Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer) explains to his young protege and model that the colors in his paintings are added one step at a time. The rich and provocative emotional layers of the story are handled masterfully and with great subtlety throughout, and Scarlett Johansson is the perfect choice for Griet; her scenes with Firth resonate with profound mutual understanding, unfathomable depths of recognition.

At its core, this is a film very much like Johansson's other recent wonderful film, Lost In Translation: two frustrated and trapped people - one an artist, one a potential artist - beautifully and wordlessly mirroring each other's souls.