Tim's Vermeer

"Tim's Vermeer" is about many things - art history, technology, painting technique, beauty - but ultimately it's a beguiling study of fascination.

We should never forget that Penn and Teller are professional bamboozlers, and their attempt to re-frame the definition of genius might be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Unexpectedly dazzling.

Tim's Vermeer is film as forensics, bringing math and science to bear to solve an art-world mystery.

"Tim's Vermeer" is a movie for people who like to think, who like to ponder the big questions surrounding art and the act of creation.

Mostly it is fascinating and compelling.

But the doc is worth a look for Jenison himself-a calm, engaging presence whose success you root for-and for its back half, which shows the process he goes through to recreate the setting of Vermeer's The Music Lesson.

Tim's Vermeer refers not just to the replica Vermeer he seeks to paint, but to his understanding of who Vermeer was and how he accomplished his work.

Perhaps the ultimate take-away from Tim's Vermeer is the unquenchable curiosity of certain people, albeit those with the money to finance that inquisitiveness, to get to the bottom of history's mysteries. In that respect, Jenison is an artist.

The lengths to which Jenison goes to ensure he is working with the same tools, limitations and liberties that were available to Vermeer are nothing short of gobsmacking.

What it turns out to actually be about is Tim Jenison, and what it means to be a member of the new (techno) rich in the United States of the 21st Century.