The Last Vermeer (2019)

The Last Vermeer turns a real postwar art scandal into a sly, absorbing moral thriller where every brushstroke feels like evidence and every smile might be a lie. Guy Pearce is magnetic as Han van Meegeren—charming, slippery, and strangely human—while Claes Bang anchors the film with a quiet intensity as the investigator trying to separate justice from vengeance in a country eager for easy villains. Dan Friedkin gives it an elegant, intelligent sheen, letting the courtroom tension and character psychology do the heavy lifting rather than cheap twists, and the result is the kind of drama that makes you lean in and listen. It’s not an action-forward war film and it does include brief nudity, but if you enjoy stories where art, ego, and history collide, this is a richly entertaining counterfeit worth your time.

The Last Vermeer clearly wants to be a classy postwar moral puzzle—part art-world intrigue, part courtroom reckoning—anchored by a larger-than-life forger and the investigator trying to pin down the truth. The problem is it often plays like a dutiful procedural, with pacing and structure that flatten what should be a deliciously twisty real-life story into something oddly standard and talky. Guy Pearce brings charisma and a few scenes crackle with ideas about ego, guilt, and national shame, but the writing can lean into showy “big moments” instead of building real momentum. If you’re hoping for a sharp, propulsive thriller about stolen masterpieces, you may feel underfed; if you’re fine with a measured, sometimes stiff historical drama carried more by performances than storytelling spark, it’s an acceptable watch.