Film directed by debutant Peter Webber in 2003 interpreted by Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson and Cillian Murphy, among others. It is not so much a biography of the Dutch painter Vermeer but more about the reality that lurks behind his famous painting Girl with a pearl. Little or nothing is known of the work of Johannes Vermeer's figure, one of the most important and defining characters of the Baroque period of his country. It was an adaptation of the bestseller by Tracy Chevalier, published in 1999, which gives the enigmatic plot to the movie.