Girl with a Pearl Earring is a 2003 drama film directed by Peter Webber. The screenplay was adapted by screenwriter Olivia Hetreed based on the novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier. The film stars Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, and Cillian Murphy. The film is named after a painting of the same name by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. The film uses a bright color scheme as in Vermeer's paintings. Griet is a shy girl living in the Dutch Republic in 1665. Her father, a Delftware painter, has recently gone blind, rendering him unable to work and putting his family in... dire straits. Consequently, Griet is sent to work as a maid in the unhappy household of the painter Johannes Vermeer . Griet works hard, almost wordlessly, in the lowest position in a harsh hierarchy, where even one of the Vermeer's children treats her spitefully. On a routine shopping trip outside the house, a butcher's son, Pieter , is quickly taken with Griet, though she is slow to return his affections.
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