Reading and watching The Miniaturist

Did Jessie Burton's bestseller live up to the hype? And did the screen version do it justice? Let's find out.

Warning: here be spoilers!

I had two four-hour train rides ahead of me last week, which meant I needed BOOKS. I came across The Miniaturist at my office's book swap, remembered that I'd been meaning to read it for several years now, and added it to my laden backpack.

Verdict?

It was good. Very good. Beautifully written, and a very well done piece of historical fiction. I give Burton a lot of credit for really placing you in a specific time without falling into the trap of obnoxiously cramming her research down your throat (and she clearly did her research!). It's a fine balance to maintain, and not everyone manages it.

I did feel, at times, like I wanted the relationships to develop a bit more. It felt like Nella and Marin went from not getting along well to being quite close very suddenly (though I guess adversity will sort of do that), and I have no idea how the relationship between Otto and Marin ever came about. That made very little sense to me; the characters didn't seem to have much connection at all. I guess you could say they hid it well. And while we're on the subject, I wish Otto had been less of a cypher. He just seemed kind of... there. I get that, as a man of colour in 17th century Amsterdam, he may have retreated into himself and felt he needed to be very closed off, but I longed for him to have more interiority, if you will. I didn't feel like I got to know him at all.

I give Burton a lot of credit for really placing you in a specific time without obnoxiously cramming her research down your throat.

And finally, the Miniaturist herself: what was the deal there? Why was she sending things nobody ever ordered? How was she seemingly anticipating things to come? (Or was she? Was the mark on the dog's head just a figment of Nella's imagination?) It's a little maddening that there's this suggestion of something possibly otherworldly or supernatural introduced and then it's just left hanging there. It feels jarring in a story that's otherwise quite rooted in sometimes harsh reality.

But overall, I liked it, and I can see why other people liked it too. They liked it so much it was turned into a miniseries back in 2017, and I just so happened to recap it on my old blog. Did I go digging through the Wayback Machine to pull up those recaps to see what I thought of The Miniaturist on screen? You betcha!

Maybe this is a sign that it's time to stop adapting the same two Jane Austen novels

Before I get into it, I'll just say how surprising it was to go back to this and realise that Anya Taylor-Joy played Nella, and she was such an unknown at the time she's listed last in the opening credits, even though she's playing the lead character. Ramola Garai was the bigger name here, and, hey! I just realised both of these women have played Emma Woodhouse! Cute, but maybe this is a sign that it's time to stop adapting the same 2-3 Jane Austen novels. I love Jane Austen and all (obviously), but there are other books, and other writers, who deserve some attention. Where's my Maria Edgeworth miniseries? Fanny Burney? Pride and Prejudice fans would LOVE Belinda!

Anyway, on to the recap.

The Miniaturist, Part I: Dollhouse of the Damned

Let’s meet our protagonist, Petronella ‘Nella’ Oortman Brandt. She arrives at the Amsterdam home of her new husband, and she brings a bird that she loves, so naturally it’s taken away from her the minute she steps through the door. No, it’s not taken by her husband, Johannes (who seems like a nice guy, and who gets along with her quite well), but by her sister-in-law, the stern, ascetic Marin. Marin prays a lot, thinks sugar is the devil, and is ruthlessly opposed to joy. We also later discover that she decorates her bedroom like it’s Snape’s laboratory. Cheery!

Marin prays a lot, thinks sugar is the devil, and decorates her bedroom like it's Snape's laboratory

There are also two servants: Otto and Cornelia. Otto was a former slave, bought and rescued by Johannes, so he’s super loyal. Cornelia seems to have absorbed the dour atmosphere of the house, but she loosens up enough over time to let Nella in on a bit of gossip. To wit: Marin wasn’t always the miserable, unlovable creature she appears to be. When she was very young (like, pre-pubescent young), she fell in love with a teenager named Frans. Frans fell in love with her, too, and when the pair was old enough he asked for Marin’s hand. But Johannes turned him down, because apparently Frans didn’t have the best reputation. Frans went on to marry a woman named Agnes, and now Frans hates Johannes and Agnes hates Marin, but they both have to keep dealing with the Brandts because Johannes is in charge of selling a huge shipment of sugar Frans has got his hands on.

The situation with the sugar, by the way, is a tad baffling. Johannes is just sitting on it, despite Marin and Frans leaning heavily on him to sell it, already. He later tells Nella that he’s postponing the inevitable sale entirely because he knows it’ll put a massive fortune in Frans’s hands and that’ll make Frans super powerful. So, instead he’s risking ruining the shipment and making Frans (who is clearly a man of means and importance, so he could, presumably, already make Johannes’s life difficult if he’s messed around with) an even bigger enemy. Good plan, Johannes! But, we’ll learn that Johannes, despite his obvious success, is perhaps not the most prudent of men.

[Note from my 2026 self: the sugar situation was just as strange to me in the book. I couldn't tell if Johannes was just wildly incompetent or being spiteful.]

As a wedding gift, Johannes gives Petronella an elaborate doll’s house. These sorts of houses were popular pasttimes for rich Dutch women at the time, but Nella’s a bit, ‘uh, what do I do with this?’ while Marin throws an absolute fit over how expensive this thing is.

But, she knows Nella needs a hobby, because Nella’s kind of at loose ends here. She’s not really mistress of the house: that’s clearly Marin’s role (and Marin, by the way, has a very close relationship with her brother. So close that, in a fit of temper, Nella essentially accuses her husband of sleeping with Marin, which makes him uncharacteristically shouty). She’s not really a full wife to Johannes, although she’s desperate to be one. She's purely decorative. All she can do is dress up in the pretty clothes he gives her and wait for something to happen. Like a doll.

All Nella can do is dress up in the pretty clothes her husband gives her and wait for something to happen. Like a doll.

But now she has this fancy miniature house to do over, even if she can’t do much to her own, actual house, and Marin gives her a list of craftspeople to get in touch with for furnishings and such.

Nella writes to one of them, requesting a few little pieces, which are delivered by an insolent young man named Jack. The sight of Jack at the front door seems to unnerve Johannes, who shoos him away quickly.

When Nella opens the parcel from the Miniaturist, she finds a rather cryptic note, along with the pieces she ordered (a lute that actually plays, a cage with a bird, a teensy silver box of marzipan, and some bonuses: a little dog that looks just like Johannes’s beloved pet, an exquisite cradle, and a model of a chair that sits in Nella’s bedroom. The sight of these last three items completely unnerves her (as they should, because she didn’t ask for or describe them, so the chair, at least, suggests this person has been in her room or knows someone who has) and she writes a scolding letter to the Miniaturist, telling her not to send anything else.

[Post-reading note: In the book, it's a pair of chairs, both of which are in a downstairs room of the house, so I guess it's possible the Miniaturist saw them through the window and was able to copy them. How she got the detail so right is a bit of a mystery, though.]

But send she does! Nella keeps receiving little packages, which get creepier and creepier. One contains dolls of her husband and sister-in-law, parcelled together in a slightly suggestive manner. There’s also a model of a box that sits on her husband’s desk, complete with hidden compartment with a set of three keys. When Nella searches the actual box, she finds the compartment, but only two keys. There’s also a tiny broken cup, and another set of dolls: all the servants, Frans and Agnes, and Jack. It seems everyone gets to live in this tiny house except for Nella herself.

It seems that everyone gets to live in this tiny house except for Nella herself

This poor young woman is becoming increasingly unnerved by this creepiness, as well as the sense of gloom and secrecy around the house. Looking for answers, she surprises Johannes at his office and finds him getting a blowjob from Jack.

I have to admit, I kind of called this early on, in the scene when Johannes and Nella were at a banquet thrown by Amsterdam's silversmiths. She asked him what he ate at sea, and he jokingly replied, ‘Other men.’ She laughed, but I went, ‘Ohhhhhhh’. Nice to be right!

Not so nice for Nella, though, who freaks the hell out and races back out onto the street, where she’s immediately grabbed by Otto and Cornelia.

They drug her so hard she’s out for three days. When she comes to, she’s greeted by Marin, who works overtime to try and get into Nella’s good graces. She’s got cinnamon biscuits and everything!

When Nella suggests she’s not interested in playing this game, Marin breaks out the big guns and tells Nella exactly what will happen to Johannes if she tells anyone what she saw. Nella, being a decent human being and all, doesn’t want to see her husband drowned, so she backs down.

Marin works overtime to try and get into Nella’s good graces. She’s got cinnamon biscuits and everything!

Later, Johannes comes home and tries to explain himself, although it’s not really the kind of thing you can explain. I mean, it’s just what you are, and he says as much, although you’d think this guy would have the sense not to be carrying on in this manner in the very place he does business. He’s not doing so well with self-preservation.

He offers her freedom: safe passage home, enough money to pay off her family’s debts, and an annulment. For some reason, she decides to stay.

Now, maybe this was handled better in the book [post-reading note: I'm not sure it was, actually], but I find this to be a baffling turn in the film. She’s miserable here. She seems to have nothing but fond memories of her home and family, whereas in Amsterdam she’s drowning in boredom and suspicion. Her husband is at very real risk of being arrested and executed at a moment’s notice, which would render her and everyone else in this household destitute and disgraced. He’s offering her a good deal here, and there’s been nothing so far to suggest she feels particularly tied to this place. If anything, she’s been given every reason to leave. So, I’m just not buying that she’d willingly agree to stay in this total sham marriage, in a scene where, just moments before, she said she had no interest in a sham marriage!

But yeah, ok, she stays. And Johannes finally goes to Venice to see about selling that sugar. While he’s gone, Jack shows up at the house, delivers a parcel from the Miniaturist, and demands to see Johannes. Everyone tells him Johannes is away, so he tells Nella that Johannes is most likely on a sex trip and threatens Marin with a knife. Marin absolutely refuses to be cowed and boredly asks what it’ll cost to make Jack disappear. Otto returns from running some errands, and the dog gets involved, so Jack stabs the dog, and now I’m like, ‘Ok, guys, go ahead and just kill this asshole.’ I mean, the dog!

Jack's stabbed through the shoulder. Too good for him, I say.

Otto grabs him, there’s a tussle, and Jack is stabbed through the shoulder. Too good for him, I say.

He flees, but now Otto’s panicking, sure the authorities will be down on him in an instant for stabbing a white man. Marin points out that that would be pretty stupid, since surely the authorities would ask the other members of the household what happened, and I’m pretty sure Marin’s and Nella’s word would count for a lot more than that of a down-and-out English actor in this society. Still, just to be safe, Marin secretly urges Otto to run, and he does.

Johannes returns home to discover his dog’s dead and his boyfriend’s not happy. He tracks Jack down and apparently the stab wound was not fatal, more’s the pity. But things are about to get worse: the next day, Frans shows up at the house, enraged because his damn sugar is still sitting in the warehouse, growing mouldy, and when Frans went to inspect it, he found Johannes in flagrante with Jack. He’s ready to go to the authorities and whirls out in a rage.

Marin begins to panic, but Nella’s got some ice in her veins and calmly assesses the situation. She decides they need to get Johannes out of the city and find a way to sell the sugar, to appease Frans.

Nella's got some ice in her veins

When Johannes gets home, Nella tells him to get out of town. He prepares to flee, handing over the key to his warehouse and a list of people who can help with the sugar sale.

Nella goes searching for the Miniaturist, whom she’s pretty sure is this creepy blue-eyed woman she keeps seeing around (and whom she saw talking to Agnes, at one point), but discovers her workshop empty. A neighbour says the militia came by, so the woman’s gone.

Nella has other things to worry about. I mean, besides her husband having to flee, and the family having a powerful enemy and a sword hanging over them. She returns home to find Marin about to drink something from a cup. Nella knocks it out of Marin’s hand, and it shatters (remember the broken cup from the Miniaturist?) It seems that Marin was attempting to induce a (very late, by the look of things) abortion. Oh, my.

Well, this is gonna be interesting.

The Miniaturist, Part II: In Which None of Your Questions are Answered

Oh dear. All that promise, and… this was the ending? Ok, let’s break it down:

So, yes, Marin is pregnant, which complicates things at a time when things really don’t need to be more complicated. But when Johannes is captured, Nella tries to spin this pregnancy as a good thing, suggesting they might be able to pass this kid off as her baby, which would prove that her husband totally isn’t gay! I’m not sure how she thinks that’ll work, especially considering the trial starts immediately, she’s only been married four months, and the baby’s due almost any day now. Also, Marin’s not interested in that deal, so it’s a no-go.

The ladies have something of a heart-to-heart and Marin confesses that it wasn’t Johannes who turned down Frans all those years ago, it was Marin herself. Her brother was just covering for her by taking the blame. She had a lot of independence as mistress of her brother’s house, and she wasn’t willing to give all of that up.

Now that Nella knows her secret, Marin apparently decides to give up any semblance of trying to keep this under wraps and orders a cradle that looks just like the one the Miniaturist sent Nella. Nella's horrified, because what are all the neighbours going to think? Marin, apparently, doesn't care. Or maybe her brother tossed her the idiot ball he's been hoarding this whole time.

Nella secretly visits Johannes in jail to try and bolster his spirits, and attends the first day of his trial. Johannes does a good job defending himself against the totally false charges of rape, but he either can’t or won’t (probably a bit of both) deny that he and Jack had a relationship. During the trial, Nella notices Agnes playing with something, and afterwards she finds a doll that very strongly resembles herself stashed under Agnes’s chair.

Nella confronts Frans with the doll, and he has a bit of a fit over Agnes’s own doll’s house, which he says is a curse on their marriage. So much so that he burned it. Harsh, man. Nella begs him to withdraw the charges against her husband. She reveals the truth of Marin’s rejection, in the hope of undoing Frans’s enmity against Johannes. Nothing doing, and really, even if he did withdraw the charge, it seems like it’d be a bit too late. Things have been said. And the court has Jack ready to testify.

Why the hell does Agnes have a doll of Nella? What's the deal there?

Here’s a question: why the hell does Agnes have a doll of Nella? What’s the deal there? I hope you’re not too keen on having that answered, because it NEVER IS. [Not explained in the book either! Just one of the Miniaturist's weird unasked-for gifts that Agnes kept with her for some reason or another.]

Nella visits the warehouse and notes that they have a LOT of sugar to move. She’s not quite sure what to do (I thought Johannes gave her some contacts? Maybe they won’t have anything to do with them now he’s been captured), but then a collection of baked goods at the doll’s house reminds her of a bakery she visited with Cornelia shortly after her arrival.

She goes back there, grabs the proprietors, shows them the sugar, and offers to do a deal. At first they’re hesitant, because they’re bakers, not sugar brokers, but this is a good deal, so they agree to take some and see what they can do with it. The sugar is so great they’re able to sell it almost right away, so it looks like it’ll be ok. Hurrah! (Though this also really makes Johannes look like he has no idea what he's doing. He couldn't sell this sugar for months but his teenaged wife, who knows absolutely nothing about how anything works, sells a chunk of it in a single afternoon?)

The sale does not, however, appease Frans, because Frans will not be appeased. Still, it’s nice to see Nella really coming into her own as a no-nonsense businesswoman here.

Marin goes into labour and gives birth to a girl whom we are not allowed to see. The show makes such a big deal of this, I immediately went, ‘Oh, the baby’s black, right?’ I don’t know, maybe it’s because I saw Versailles or something, but I twigged to the whole thing right off, which made it feel a bit ridiculous that it was treated as a big reveal about ten scenes later. Yes, the baby is black. Otto was Marin’s lover. They hid that well.

I'd love to know more about what happened here. Marin didn't want to be married, because she didn't want to lose her independence, but what did she think would happen if she took a lover? Especially a lover whose child would be very obviously his? She's not stupid, she surely must have known what sort of risk she was taking. Was she so desperate for affection or a connection with someone that she would do something so, well, risky?

And what about him? This is very dangerous for him as well. I can't imagine the people in charge of Amsterdam at this time would look kindly on a Black man sleeping with a white woman. So how and why did this relationship come about? We'll never know! [The book doesn't give us any more detail either, which is maddening. We only really get to experience Nella's thoughts, nobody else's, which can make some of the other characters and their relationships feel a bit flat, if I'm honest.]

Unfortunately, Marin does not get to enjoy motherhood. She’s not doing so well in the aftermath of the birth. Nella has to get back to Johannes’s trial, so she tells Cornelia to find a midwife or wet nurse who can help Marin and pay the woman whatever she has to, while she goes and takes care of business.

Greed and hypocrisy are almost certainly feeding this craziness. They always do, right?

She’s a bit late to trial day 2, because childbirth and all, so she misses Agnes’s testimony, but she does get to see Frans’s and Jack’s, and it’s fairly damning. Johannes, who’s clearly been beaten and has had his head shaved in the last day, continues to defend himself, pointing out that greed and hypocrisy are almost certainly feeding this craziness. They always do, right?

Nella returns home and discovers that Marin did not survive. The wet nurse Cornelia found couldn’t do anything for her, but at least now there's someone who can feed the baby. Noting that the baby's half Black, she only agrees to nurse it for an extortionate fee. Nella’s all, ‘Whatever, the baby needs to eat, and I have bigger problems.’

She goes to the local church to inform the minister that Marin has died. He’s like, ‘Well, she was a good, pious woman. Shame about the brother. Oh, I hope you weren’t hoping to have her buried here?’

She most certainly did hope, and she stands her ground, refusing to take no for an answer, so the guy finally offers her a tiny spot in the back corner of the church. She takes it, and orders up the best wood for the coffin.

Time for the verdict. Johannes is found innocent of the rape charge, but guilty of sodomy, which means he’ll be executed.

On the way out of the courtroom, Nella spots the Miniaturist and pursues her back to her hidden workshop, to get some answers already. There, she finds a map of Amsterdam spread out on a table, with little piles of parcels here and there. Seems this lady has quite a few clients.

The woman seems frightened, even moreso when Nella asks what the hell is going on and how she knows all these things about her household. The Miniaturist bleats that people always think she has some sort of second sight or whatever, but she’s just really observant. She made the Marin doll pregnant because she noticed that the woman started waddling more than walking. And when Marin ordered a cradle that looked just like the one the Miniaturist had made, well, that was just because of the power of suggestion: Marin saw the mini cradle and liked it enough to order one just like it (also: that cradle’s design was fairly common for that place and time. That’s just me pointing that out).

This does not, however, explain how the woman knew about the chair that’s in Nella’s room, or the broken cup [not in the book, BTW] or the wound that apparently appeared on the miniature of Johannes’s dog. Nella asks specifically about the dog miniature, and the woman’s response is, ‘Well, yeah, sometimes I do see things that haven’t happened yet.’ Lady, you JUST SAID there was no magic to this. Which is it?

Seriously? Magic? That's our answer?

And seriously? Magic? That’s our answer? She ‘just knows’ things? I still have so many other questions I want answered. Why did she continue to send the miniatures, even when she was specifically instructed not to? Does she do that with everyone? Why? How is she funding that? Especially since she clearly uses top-notch supplies (she admits that the cone of sugar the Agnes doll is holding is made of real sugar, which is why it went mouldy, just like some of the sugar in the warehouse. She used an incredibly expensive, rare commodity in a doll!) Why is she hiding away in this garret? Whatever happened to the letter Nella sent the man who trained this woman, asking what the woman’s deal is? Did she ever get a response? What’s with all the cryptic notes, which seemed like they were adding up to something, but then… didn’t? Seriously, WHAT THE HELL? You can’t explain all these things away with ‘eh, magic. Maybe.’

But guess what! If you’re the type of person who wants some answers, too bad! You get none! And that’s when this whole story lost me. I hope, hope, hope this is all handled less sloppily in the book, but at this point, I may never find out, because I don’t really want to read the book anymore. This was just… stupid.

[It is handled a little better in the book. I don't know why they introduced things like the broken cup in the series, which does suggest the Miniaturist can see the future or something. In the book Nella never speaks to the Miniaturist, she speaks to the woman's father, who talks about how talented she is, and how unnerving people find it. It's left really ambiguous how and why the Miniaturist makes the things she does, but it could, possibly, be explained away as her just being very, very observant and having an extreme eye for detail that lets her catch things that other people miss.]

Nella visits Johannes one last time and is unable to tell him his sister is dead. Probably better that way. Afterward, she attends the execution. He’s taken to the waterfront, and a millstone is tied around his neck. It’s pushed into the water, and a moment later there’s a second splash, and he’s gone.

Nella turns away and sees Otto standing there. They embrace, to comfort each other, and she takes him home to meet his daughter. While he cuddles the baby, she receives one last gift from the Miniaturist: a doll of the infant. She and the woman exchange one last look, and then Nella goes into her husband’s office, gives herself a little pep talk, and prepares to get to work.

I hate it when something I really want to like turns into a total disappointment. Well, maybe that’s a bit strong, because there is a lot to like in this adaptation. The first half of it is pretty tense, it’s wonderfully acted, and gorgeously shot. Nearly every single shot is framed, lit, and composed to look like a painting by a Dutch master:

The first and third ones especially scream ‘Vermeer!’ to me. He did a whole slew of paintings of women standing in front of sunlit windows.

And the costumes! Let’s talk about the costumes, because this is me, and I love talking about what the clothes are saying. And Nella’s costumes have a LOT to say.

Only two women in this story actually wear colour: Nella and the Miniaturist.

The Miniaturist exclusively dresses in a blue dress and a blue velvet cloak, both of which serve to set her apart from her surroundings.

And Nella’s costumes, for a while, serve a similar purpose. At her family home, and when she first arrives at Johannes’s house, Nella is dressed like this:

Bright, simple, plain, practical, showing a fair bit of skin, which underlines both her vulnerability and the fact that she’s been brought here to be praded around as proof that Johannes totally wants to have sex with a woman. The colours tie her to her family members, but not so much to her surroundings in Amsterdam.

Since her purpose is to draw attention and be an object of admiration, she’s dressed up like an extravagant doll, once she settles into her new life as a wealthy Amsterdam merchant's wife:

Bright silks, delicate lace, but nothing about these clothes say ‘I belong here, with these people.’ Nobody else is dressed even remotely the same: just look at her in that church. She stands out like a bolt of lightening. You can't not look at her, which is the point. 'Look, here's Johannes's wife! Johannes has a wife now! He's just like everyone else!' She's not even allowed to draw the curtains in her bedroom. She's here to be put on display.

The only time she remotely seems to be tied to another person is in the two dinner party scenes, when her costume rather closely matches her husband’s (sorry for the lighting!):

There’s a good reason for that: the point is to make a show of the fact that these two are a pair. Nope, no gay man to see here! Look at how sympatico he is with his wife!

But there is a gay man to see here, and as soon as Nella realises what’s been going on, her clothing changes drastically:

No more delicate lace and frippery. No more exposed bosoms. No more bright pastels. Even her outerwear is significantly toned down. This is a more sober woman, a woman who has work to do, and notice how much more she matches the surroundings of the house, now she’s made a declaration that this is her home and she’s determined to stick with it. Look at how closely the warm earth tones of her gown tie her both to Johannes and his firelit study.

And speaking of being tied to your surroundings:

You guys: she matches the wrappers on the sugar. The sugar that was refined in Amsterdam, naturally. The good sugar.

And we end with her having found her place, both professionally and sartorially:

That is the face of a woman ready to do business. She’s still, unusually for the characters in this film, wearing a colour, but it’s a strong, sober, businesslike colour. It’s fairly unadorned, but she’s dressed it up with that rather extravagant necklace. The necklace was a gift from Johannes, so it both pays homage to her late husband and indicates that she's a woman of means. Aside from when he first gave this to her, I don't think she wore jewellery at any other point in the series, so this notable. I think it suggests that she's going to be just fine, going forward. She's made some money herself, and she'll make more. She can do this. Go Nella. Go do this!

Have your say

Did you read and/or watch The Miniaturist? I'd love to hear what you thoughts! Comment away!