Girl With a Pearl Earring

This is simply a luscious movie, quite stunning in its attention to detail, atmosphere and historic ambience.

It's a work of fiction based around the life of the Dutch master-painter Johannes Vermeer, played here by Colin Firth. It's a sort of biographical fiction, as it incorporates admittedly hazy details of the life of Vermeer, with a fiction based around the supposed relationship between the painter and the girl, Griet, who was used as a model for one of the Delft painter's most acclaimed works, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'.

Griet (Scarlett Johansson) is a servant-girl who comes to work for the Vermeer family. This leisurely movie explores how an erotically-charged (though never carnal) relationship is slowly forged between servant and painter, as she progresses to become the artist's assistant and, finally, model.

The atmosphere of Delft in the early 17th Century is brilliantly evoked -- and the home of Vermeer, with his waspish, constantly-nagging and jealous wife (Essie Davis), surly daughter Cornelia (Alikina Mann), is painted by director Peter Webber with delicate precision.

Also convincing is Tom Wilkinson as Vermeer's lecherous patron Van Ruijven, who plans to plunder Griet of her most precious possession....

Sharing honours with director Peter Webber must be cinematographer Eduardo Serra and the art designer Christina Schaffer. Together, they have produced a dazzling interpretation of the setting's place and time. This is one movie in which atmosphere is as important, perhaps even more important, than plot -- and that is not to the detriment of a very satisfying film

Interestingly, this movie almost never happened. It was originally slated to have been directed by Mike Newell, and to have starred Kate Hudson and Ralph Fiennes. Kate Hudson pulled out, starting a pyramid of events which resulted in the totally different casting -- and most probably, totally different movie.

It was a serendipitious happening, for the casting of Scarlett Johansson was a master-stroke. She not only reveals herself to be a fine actress, but her sheer physical appearance and beauty makes her an almost-perfect match for the girl in famous painting itself.

The film image in this widescreen anamorphic transfer is quite dark at times, and also quite grainy and soft -- but I think that most of those attributes are deliberate, and aimed at the evocation of this very different place and time. The overall quality is as I remembered in the cinema -- with brilliantcolours sacrificed in the cause of an accurately-subdued ambience.

There is a 5.1 Surround Dolby track which is mainly frontal in its effect, with the full surround being mainly used for incidental crowd/family noises. Sound is clear and rich and does justice to a very effective musical score.

There's also a stereo commmentary track, and a 5.1 Surround Descriptive Audio track, in which a voice-over narrator describes key happenings for visually-impaired viewers. I've not encountered this feature before, and hope I need never use it!

The main extra feature is Anatomy of a Scene which contains the germ of a good idea, but which becomes quite tedious towards the end.

This 24-minute feature focuses on one scene in the movie, the Banquet Scene in which Vermeer must entertain his obnoxious patron, and pulls together all the elements used to create the scene. It's interesting, but the repetitive nature makes it pretty boring by the end.

There are eight deleted scenes running for around 14 minutes in total. These offer elucidation of some deliberately ambiguous moments in the movie, and it's fascinating to hear director Peter Webber explain in the optional commentary why complete threads of the movie had to be stripped away to bring running-time back to a reasonable length.

The Making Of documentary, running for 14 minutes, gives good background to the project, including how Colin Firth had to learn for himself the rudiments of how a 17th Century artist went about his craft, including creating his own pigments.

There are two audio commentaries, and the first is from direcor Peter Webber and producer Andy Paterson. This is informative and witty, and worth a listen. The second track comes from the writer of the novel on which the movie is based, Tracey Chevalier, in conversation with the scriptwriter Olivia Hetreed. This is not up to the same standard as the first, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to view the movie a third time just to hear their comments.

Finally, we have the original cinema release trailer, running at almost two minutes and presented in excellent condition.

Don't expect high-drama here; it's a delicate evocation of time and place, with a subtle erotic undercurrent. It's a movie which demands repeated viewings, so buy rather than rent.