''The Last Vermeer'' is a 2019 American drama film directed by Dan Friedkin from a screenplay by

John Orloff John Orloff is an American screenwriter. Early life Orloff was born in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised in a "Hollywood" family. His father, also named John Orloff, was a TV commercial director. His grandmother was B-movie actress ...

(under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

James McGee), Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby. It is based on the 2008 book ''The Man Who Made Vermeers'' by Jonathan Lopez, and tells the story of Han van Meegeren (played by Guy Pearce), an art maker who swindles millions of dollars from the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

, alongside Dutch Resistance fighter Joseph Piller (

Claes Bang Claes Kasper Bang (; born 28 April 1967) is a Danish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the leading role of Christian in Ruben Östlund's 2017 film '' The Square'', which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and for the r ...

). The film had its worldwide release at the Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 20, 2020, by

Sony Pictures Releasing Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group (commonly known as Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, formerly known as the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group until 2013, and abbreviated as SPMPG) is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainme ...

Plot

''The Last Vermeer'' follows "Dutch folk hero Han van Meegeren who swindled millions of dollars from the art world including the

by selling them forgeries of Johannes Vermeer paintings and is considered the most successful art forger of all time." A biography in 1967 estimated that Van Meegeren duped buyers out of more than US$30 million; his victims included the government of the Netherlands.

Cast

* Guy Pearce as Han van Meegeren *

as Captain Joseph Piller * Vicky Krieps as Minna Holberg * Roland Møller as Espen Dekker *

August Diehl August Diehl (; born 4 January 1976) is a German actor, primarily known to international audiences for playing Gestapo major Dieter Hellstrom in Quentin Tarantino's ''Inglourious Basterds'' and Michael "Mike" Krause, Evelyn Salt's husband, in the ...

as Alex De Klerks * Olivia Grant as Cootje Henning *

Susannah Doyle Susannah Doyle (born 5 July 1966) is an English actress, best known for her roles as Joy Merryweather in ''Drop The Dead Donkey'' and as Avril Burke in ''Ballykissangel''. The daughter of the Irish actor Tony Doyle, she realised that she wish ...

as Johana *

Adrian Scarborough Adrian Philip Scarborough (born 10 May 1968) is an English actor. He has appeared in films including ''The Madness of King George'' (1994), ''Gosford Park'' (2001), ''Vera Drake'' (2004), ''The History Boys'' (2006), ''The King's Speech'' (2010 ...

as Dirk Hannema

Production

On April 25, 2018, it was announced that Imperative Entertainment had begun production on ''Lyrebird'', a film directed by Dan Friedkin and produced by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by James McGee, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The film is Friedkin's directorial debut. Alongside the film's initial announcement, it was confirmed that Guy Pearce,

, Vicky Krieps, and Roland Møller had been cast in film's lead roles. Principal photography for the film was underway by April 2018, taking place in the United Kingdom and Holland. On May 22, 2018, filming took place at Fort Widley in Portsmouth, England. In April and August 2018, filming took place in Dordrecht and

Schiedam Schiedam () is a city and municipality in the west of the Netherlands. It is located in the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen, and south of Delft. In the south the city is connected with the village ...

, Netherlands.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2019. It also screened at the

2019 Toronto International Film Festival The 44th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 September 2019. The opening gala was the documentary film '' Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band'', directed by Daniel Roher, and the festival closed with a ...

on September 11, 2019. Prior to, Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights to the film. It was scheduled to be released on May 22, 2020, but was pulled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then released on November 20, 2020, with TriStar Pictures distributing instead of Sony Pictures Classics.

Reception

Box office

The film made $1,225,000 from 1912 theaters in its opening weekend.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Led by a skilled performance from Guy Pearce, ''The Last Vermeer'' derives diverting drama from its historically inspired wartime story." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film an average 4 out of 5 stars.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Vermeer, The 2019 films 2019 directorial debut films American drama films American films based on actual events 2019 drama films Films based on non-fiction books Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic Films shot in Hampshire Films shot in the Netherlands TriStar Pictures films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films Films about art forgery Films scored by Johan Söderqvist