Mark Reviews Movies: THE LAST VERMEER

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 19, 2020

The most important and fascinating revelation in The Last Vermeer almost feels like an anticlimax. It re-shapes everything we think we know about this story and the figure at the center of its potentially criminal and immoral controversy, but a character simply explains the truth, before it's further confirmed. There's a whole story within this revelation, but director Dan Friedkin's movie already has determined its approach. Instead of going with the information this story uncovers and finding the intrigue within it, the movie continues to stand its ground.

It's too bad the story we get, which begins as a mystery and turns into a courtroom drama, is about as routine and bland an approach as one could devise. The truth here—about what our mysterious man did, why he did it, what he actually believes, and how much of any of these details is just an act of showmanship—is far more complex, far trickier, and far more intriguing than what screenwriters James McGee, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby (adapting a non-fiction book—which will go unnamed, because it gives away the movie's big secret—by Jonathan Lopez) find important.

The story begins weeks after the end of World War II in Europe, set in an Amsterdam that is still reeling from the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Collaborators are being discovered and publicly executed for their crimes against the country and its population.

Of key interest to Captain Joseph Piller (Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew who fought in the country's resistance and now holds an official position with the Allied Forces, is Han van Meegeren (Guy Pearce), a failed artist who profited by selling paintings to Nazi officials. He even sold a recently discovered painting by Johannes Vermeer, a beloved national artist from the 17th century who was only known to have painted about 30 works, to Hermann Göring. With the painting recovered from the private collection of the second most powerful man in the Nazi state, Piller arrests Han.

A weaving investigation follows, as Han doles out little clues about his associates and, working out of an art gallery, Piller, with the help of old friend Dekker (Roland Møller) and his assistant Minna (Vickey Krieps), follows the trail of the painting and the money. We learn a bit about each of the main men here. Piller is in a conflicted relationship with his wife (Marie Bach Hansen), who became trusted by and intimate with occupying Nazis in order to funnel money to the resistance, and is having difficulty with the moral ambiguity of what happened during the war. The details serve less as a driving force for the character and more as some additional drama to break up the investigative scenes.

Han, though, is a much richer character, and it's a bit of a surprise that the movie doesn't focus on or dig into him even more. Pearce plays him with cool, crooked charm. Han tried to be a painter, after his father attempted to beat the passion out of him, but saw his plans for success ruined by critics and experts who refused to accept his art. That transformed the "third-rate artist," as gallery owner Dirk Hannema (Adrian Scarborough), into a "first-rate opportunist."

Did Han sell at least one painting to Göring? He doesn't deny it. Is there more to that story? There certainly is, but Han, strange and slippery man that he is, plays coy about his true motives.

The screenwriters write themselves into a corner with this setup. They want to present a mystery about Han and his actions, but that framing keeps the real story, which is all about why Han sold the painting (as well as a few others to various people and galleries) and what he did to obtain these unimaginably rare works of art, at a distance. We learn the truth about halfway through the movie (from a character whose research is kept off-screen and then just bluntly stated), and our perspective of Han, who seems like the narcissistic and at best amoral swindler that everyone says he is, shifts. He's still an egomaniac and an unethical con artist, but did many, many other crimes make him innocent of the treasonous one of which he is accused?

Frankly, we want more of and from this character, who mostly ends up charming his way through his trial, Meanwhile, Piller attempts to argue a truth that seems so unlikely and so damning to the art-world establishment that no one is willing to believe it.

The underlying tale here is one of morality and ethics, how people maneuver through difficult and strenuous situations by adjusting their values, and, with a final revelation about Han's past, whether morality is black-and-white or exists more as shades of gray. That's a fascinating and complex story, albeit one for another day, perhaps. The Last Vermeer only sees this real-life scenario as the foundation for a mystery and court drama with a few twists and a lot of unfulfilled promise.

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