For five centuries, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa has inspired debate and speculation.

Who is she?

What does her smile say, hide or suggest?

Tracy Chevalier's 1999 best-selling novel The Girl With a Pearl Earring applied the same questions and speculation to Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer's ethereal portrait of a young woman with a pearl earring.

Chevalier suggests the model was Griet (Scarlett Johansson) a teenage serving girl in the Vermeer household, and the portrait is a declaration of unattainable love by Vermeer (Colin Firth).

As a novel, it is a beautiful, simple and touching tale. As a movie under the careful, loving direction of Peter Webber it is a shimmering story of star-crossed lovers separated by age and class.

Griet's father, an artist who worked with tiles, was blinded so the family had to send their daughter out to work.

Griet has an understanding and love of art that Vermeer's wife Catharina (Essie Davis), mother-in-law Maria (Judy Parfitt) and wealthy patron Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson) fail to grasp.

It is no wonder Vermeer is drawn to her even if she is barely older than his eldest daughter.

Griet has her own suitor in Pieter (Cillian Murphy) the butcher's apprentice, a young man who has sincere feelings and respect for her. This makes the love she feels for Vermeer all the more confusing and painful.

Vermeer and Griet rarely speak to one another even though she cleans his studio and eventually helps him mix paints.

Their love is conveyed through the glances they secretly shoot at each other and the way their fingers touch when they reach for the same utensils.

That the audience can sense the lovers' unspoken passion is a credit to Firth, Johansson and Webber.

There is no missing or denying how powerful and deep their feelings run.

Though Parfitt, Wilkinson and Davis make their characters' emotions more overt, their performances are no less beautifully calculated.

The film needs such contrast if it to show the differences between love, lust, passion, obsession, infatuation and jealousy.

In one of the most unforgettable and powerful moments in the film, Griet rushes to Pieter when she would rather be rushing into the arms of Vermeer.

The mixture of elation and confusion in Murphy's eyes says volumes.

Johansson's performance, a study in economy and understatement, was sadly overlooked in this year's Oscar nominations.

This is a performance and a film as intelligent and perceptive as they are compelling and enthralling.

(This film is rated PG)

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