The Last Vermeer Should Have Been Better

 

THE LAST VERMEER (2019)

Directed by Dan Friedkin

Sony Pictures, 118 minutes, R (brief nudity, language, violence)

★★★

 

 

 

Near the end of The Last Vermeer Han van Meergern proclaims, “I believe every fascist deserves to be swindled.” No argument there, but was the audience also swindled? Sort of. Movies such as this can be more frustrating than bad ones. It’s merely okay and it’s too easy to detect the various ways in which scriptwriters and director Dan Friedkin give us a muddy watercolor instead of a vibrant oil.

 

The plot is based on actual events detailed by Jonathan Lopez in his 2008 book The Man Who Made Vermeers. World War II has ended and the Allied Command is in the process of shutting down to return control of The Netherlands to a civilian government. That’s not good news for Captain Joseph Piller (Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew tracing art looted by the Nazis. He has a big fish in custody: Han van Meergern (Guy Pearce). He stands accused of selling Christ and the Adulterer, a hitherto lost work of 17^th century luminary Johannes Vermeer, to Hitler’s righthand man, Hermann Goering. The 1.6 million guilders van Meergern pocketed was, at the time, the most ever paid for an artwork. Detective Alex De Klerks (August Diehl) wants possession of van Meergern, perhaps to send him to the firing squad with other Dutch collaborators, or worse to let him walk in exchange for information.

 

Piller finds van Meergern privileged and arrogant, but he also entertains an inkling of doubt about his guilt. The last point is among several unfilled plot holes. Why does Piller care about van Meergern? Pearce plays van Meergern in full foppish condescension. He lived in the lap of luxury while Piller, a member of the Dutch Resistance, spent the war avoiding being captured and sent to a death camp. Friedkin offers psychobabble instead of solid motives; Piller’s wife Leez (Marie Bach Hansen) was also in the Resistance, but her job was to court the Nazis to ferret out information. Joseph believes she did her best work in the boudoir. Or is that just because Piller is drawn to his assistant Minna Holberg (Vicky Krieps), a widow? Friedkin’s attempt to suggest their relationship remained chaste either further whitewashes Piller’s behavior or is another plot hole–take your pick.

 

Friedkin tries to play coy, but he need not have bothered; it’s obvious before the film is 20 minutes old that van Meergern is a forger. Perhaps he wanted us not to notice that women of The Last Vermeer are afterthoughts. Leez is scarcely present and the only other female character of note is Cootje Henning (Olivia Grant), a social gadfly, model, and serial paramour whose biggest scene is an unclothed one. These are odd choices given that Minna who figured out that van Meergern is telling the truth that the Vermeer he sold to Goring was a forgery by his own hand. That’s a hard sell, though, as everyone van Meergern claims can verify his claim is missing or dead, and the entire Dutch art establishment views van Meergern as a hack who couldn’t possibly paint like Vermeer.   

 

What’s a man facing the firing squad to do? Why paint another Vermeer, of course. It will be a defense exhibit at van Meergern’s trial, but not one that a Dutch court or the art world wishes to entertain. After all, Piller is a Jew defending a traitor with a fanciful tale of using Bakelite (an early plastic) to pass the usual test for forgery. Worse still, the same art critics scoff at van Meergern’s boast that he also painted several other “Vermeers” on display in art museums, including Christ at Emmaus at the Boijmans in Rotterdam whose director, Dirk Hannema (Adrian Scarborough), is the chief witness for the prosecution. Van Meergern’s flamboyant braggadocio sways spectators witnessing the trial, but is the Dutch public too hungry for a hero and too anxious to believe what isn’t so?   

 

The Last Vermeer is worth watching for Pearce’s star turn, its takedown of pompous critics, and its lessons on how easily “truth” can be massaged. If only what was made up was as exciting as what really happened, this would have been a gem.

 

Rob Weir

 

Postscript: Among art connoisseurs, few 17^th century painters are as celebrated as Vermeer. He left just 36 recognized works, several of which are certainly fakes. Han van Meergern is now viewed as the greatest forger in Western art history.