Trailer
Plot summary
In Delft in 1665, Griet, the daughter of a Delftware painter who has recently gone blind, leaves her family in difficult circumstances to serve in the home of Johannes Vermeer and his wife, Catharina. She works at the bottom of a harsh hierarchy, where Vermeer's daughter Cornelia treats her unkindly, while a butcher's son, Pieter, becomes drawn to her. In the studio that Catharina never enters, Vermeer talks with Griet about painting, light and color, teaches her to mix paints, and keeps these lessons from his wife. His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, finds her useful to his career. When the rich patron Pieter van Ruijven notices Griet, he asks Vermeer for a portrait of her.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kate Hudson was originally cast as Griet but pulled out four weeks before filming began in September 2001, officially over "creative differences"; her decision lost the production its financial support from Intermedia and led to the withdrawal of Mike Newell as director and Ralph Fiennes as Vermeer, who left for Maid in Manhattan.
- Chevalier agreed to the adaptation believing that a British studio would help resist Hollywood's urge "to sex up the film", and she stipulated that the adaptation avoid having the main characters consummate their relationship.
- Casting Griet was Webber's first major step and led to interviews with 150 girls before he chose the 17-year-old actress Scarlett Johansson, who he felt "just stood out" and had "something distinctive about her".
- The musical score was written by French composer Alexandre Desplat, whom Webber hired after hearing a score he had composed for a Jacques Audiard film; Webber liked his "sense of restraint and a sense of lyricism", remembering the cue where Griet opens the shutters.
- The film was budgeted at £10 million and, although set in Delft, was shot primarily in Amsterdam, Belgium and Luxembourg; Chevalier said Webber and Serra "needed absolute control of the space and light they worked with", impossible while shutting down a busy Delft street.
- While researching the role, Firth realized that Vermeer was "incredibly elusive as an artist", and so, unlike Webber and Johansson, he chose to read the book to gain a better grasp of a man of whom little information existed on his private life.
