I just tuned into this on IFC while finishing some work. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this film (and book) as a commentary on the Power of Art. The story of Grite and her entry into the world of Vermeer shows just how the realm of the sublime aesthetic experience can illuminate our ordinary lives and fill them with new understanding--and also reveal the wretchedness of our prosaic existence and make us dicontent.
Colin Firth is in top form as the brooding, ambitious, clog-wearing, painter Vermeer, Scarlett Johansen is better than usual playing a starstruck maid and portrait subject, and it's
interesting to See Cillian Murphy as the strapping, vital butcher's son Peter (although he's too pretty for the part) instead of the wild-eyed, simpering psychopaths he's been attracted to playing recently.The film's soundtrack is incredible and the cinematography is gorgeously evocative of Vermeers' work. It's almost like watching a 2-hour painting, which is all fine and dandy with me. But such a film is not for the action-addicted among us; the ration of screen time to words spoken is as low as it goes.
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