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Girl with a Pearl Earring

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United Kingdom, Luxembourg · 2003
Rated PG-13 · 1h 41m
Director Peter Webber
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy
Genre Drama, Romance

"Girl With A Pearl Earring," a painting by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, is translated from still image into motion picture. Based on the story by fiction novelist Tracy Chevalier, a young peasant maid works in the house of Vermeer and becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works in this true-to-form film.

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60

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

An auspicious feature-directing debut by Mr. Webber in so many ways -- a groaning board of temptations for the eye and ear -- that you may almost forgive the film its lack of drama and the perfunctory attempts at characterization. Viewing this film has been likened to watching paint dry; actually it is more like watching a painting dry.

70

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

Wide-eyed, open-mouthed, and silently beseeching, she's (Johansson) even more a screen for projection here than in "Lost in Translation"; surrounded by a gaggle of over-actors, she glows with understatement.

75

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

One of those films that does many things right, and that places it among the year's best period pieces. It's a cut above the usual BBC costume drama.

80

The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps

Webber displays a great sense of understatement and a keen eye for careful framing, with cinematographer Eduardo Serra beautifully re-creating Vermeer's signature play of shadow and light.

60

Time by Richard Schickel

This material is either underdeveloped or crudely put by a director whose style is so conventional that he makes James Ivory look, by comparison, like Jean-Luc Godard.

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