film

Here's a quietly beguiling drama from 1990 about art, chance encounters and the strange connections that can develop between strangers. Set largely around the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, it follows Mark, a Wall Street stockbroker mourning a recent loss, and Anna, a young French actress trying to make her way in the city. Their relationship begins when Mark notices Anna admiring Vermeer’s Portrait of a Young Woman, setting off a tentative romance defined and driven by shared fascinations as much as attraction. 

Silver’s film moves at a contemplative pace and captures New York as a place of fleeting encounters and emotional dislocation, and Vermeer’s intimate, mysterious paintings echo the characters’ attempts to understand each other. An understated, melancholy treat.