oh, Scarlett.

(ignore the talentless thing on the right)
Scarlett, you know I'll love you forever. All it took was Lost in Translation. But, take it from one of your most ardent supporters: you were so much better when you were an actress and not a product of hype, like here in the despicable Ghost World (in which you were great). Your performances in Scoop and The Prestige were hardly bad, but when you're in 230580584698 movies like you were last year, I'd expect Girl with a Pearl Earring-level brilliance in at least one of them...

an actual movie review

I watched Girl with a Pearl Earring last night (for the second or third time) with one of my classes. The movie has a lot of strengths.
For one thing, and perhaps most importantly, despite being a practically dialogue-free movie (that's an exaggeration, but it is, to say the least, hardly a gabfest), it is never boring. This is probably due to the movie's other two biggest boons: its fantastic lead actress and its cinematography. Scarlett Johansson is incredible in this film, full of unspoken nuance (though I still think those who say she's better here than in Lost in Translation are nuts), fascinating even before she was the major star she is today. Secondly, the cinematography is UHHHMAZING. Maybe because I'm an Art History major, but I can't help but be crazy for a movie when every shot looks like a Vermeer painting, through its use of light and compositions. It's the best cinematographic job of the new decade.
Still, the film does have its flaws. Every character save Griet seems to be kind of one-dimensional or be there only as a plot point (and it might only be by the grace of Scarlett that Griet is not). I'm all for unsympathetic characters, but the extreme bile that the screenwriter and director create toward Vermeer's daughter (and his wife and patron, but to a lesser extent) is excessive, and pointless.
Nevertheless, it is a smart, respectable, and GORGEOUS movie. B+, #7 of 2003