Brush with Fate

This movie is a decent adaptation of the novel--however, reading the novel is almost necessary in order to get the depth of the characters' struggles throughout the film. I have used this film with students studying Vreeland's novel and they have found it a wonderful aid in comprehending the novel. While I am sure many have read the novel and enjoyed it, there is a deeper subtext that the novel implies that is not captured in the film. In each story there is a child/parent relationship that is pivotal to meaning of the painting to that particular owner. I enjoyed the performances---especially Glenn Close, who truly captured the craziness of the character Cornelius from the novel and the story of Magdelena was well told.

This film is a history of a painting and people who owned it over 300 years. It is told backwards through flashbacks, from its current owner, an eccentric art professor (Glenn Close) to its origin. Each chapter tells of the price they paid for their love of the painting. The individual stories are all involving, and there is rather morbid twist at the very end you won't see coming. Two hours well-spent. James Welch Henderson Arkansas. 4/17/21.

Thomas Gibson is a new art teacher at a high school. Glenn Close is good as usual as a history teacher who invites Gibson to see a painting of a young girl at a table, which she believes to be a genuine Vermeer, and she tells him stories, which we see as flashbacks about the people who owned the painting in the past. All of the stories take place in Holland, and for the most part each story takes place earlier than the one preceding it. I have no idea what happened in the first story, from the late 1800s, except that it seemed to involve a romance and may have had flashbacks within flashbacks. At this point I was not enjoying the movie. Another story took place in the early 1700s when a baby was abandoned during a flood after a dike break. The painting accompanied the baby and was intended to be sold for the baby's expenses.

Things got a little more interesting in the next story, which had some of the movie's few humorous moments. A man left a university to take a job working with the machinery used for the dikes. He got interested in a servant girl who was punished by being put in stocks, and their romance was not seen as a good idea. We find out in this story where the baby came from.

The next story was very brief, but a woman, who was unsuccessful in bidding for the painting at an auction, seemed to know more about the painting than the auctioneer. The next story revealed how Vermeer came to paint the girl's picture, and this was somewhat more interesting than the rest of the movie. At this point we have seen relatively little of Gibson and Close, but it appears things will get better as they return. Gibson doubts the painting's authenticity, so one more story about Jews in 1942 is necessary.

This was part of the 'Hallmark Hall of Fame' series, and I usually enjoy these movies, but I found this one to be a disappointment. The best things about the movie were probably the beautiful Dutch houses in the city, and the camera shots of windmills. But this was just not for me. Maybe others would enjoy it.

This made for TV movie presented by Hallmark was something I looked forward to seeing this Sunday, since it dealt with the painter Johannes Vermeer (a favorite painter of mine) and how a certain painting of his got in the hands of an eccentric woman and her father. The woman is Glenn Close, looking very mousy and spinster-ish, she tells the story to a young man (Thomas Gibson) of how that painting turned out to be in her family. The performance by Kelly Macdonald (Gosford Park) is the highlight of the movie as she plays it like a young Kate Winslet, with a lot of fire and mischief in her eyes. The performances were much better for an actuall theatrical release. Too bad the ending was rather lame, and left many questions unanswered about Glenn Close's character. Still, if you have a fascination with paintings and the stories behind them, this is truly a nice piece of Made for TV fanfare. If you still want more, watch the movie "The Red Violen" for a similiar story and intrigue.

This film is a history of a painting and the people who owned it over 300 years. It is told backwards through flashbacks, from its current owner, an eccentric art professor (Glenn Close) to its origin. Each chapter tells of the price they paid for their love of the painting. The individual stories are all involving, and there is a rather morbid twist at the very end you won't see coming. Two hours well-spent.