If you haven't watched the all three episodes of The Miniaturist on Masterpiece PBS, consider yourself warned, there are spoilers ahead!
The final episode of The Miniaturist, a miniseries based on Jessie Burton's novel of the same name, aired tonight on Masterpiece PBS, and the ending was left open to the viewer's interpretation. Who was the titular miniaturist? A witch? Or simply a keen observer?
Her appearance on-screen is a marked difference from the book. In the original text, we never meet the craftswoman who has fashioned furniture and dolls for Nella's cabinet house with seemingly omniscient insight into the Brandt family's affairs.
"One of the predominant changes is the actual character of the miniaturist is shown," Burton tells Town & Country. "For me, she was more of a symbol in the book, but I’m coming to learn that when you come to a more visual medium, you kind of have to draw those characters in more closely."
Hence, actress Emily Berrington's mysterious portrayal.
"The main character of the title, the Miniaturist, doesn’t appear a huge amount in the book and we felt that that was a slight oversight," executive producer, Kate Sinclair, told Radio Times of the decision.
"We felt that wasn’t right for this story and we didn’t want our audience to feel cheated,” Sinclair said, "so John [Brownlow] has written a very beautiful scene where the two of them meet and Nella finds out more about who she is and why she’s doing what she’s doing." Burton reportedly gave her blessing for the addition to the adaptation.
"I think on some levels it works because it’s more explanatory, and I hope that will satisfy people, but the point of the miniaturist for me is that she’s an outsider looking in and she’s sort of a teacher, and she’s a comment on perception," Burton says. "I trust the filmmakers and the producers that they felt they were telling the story in a way that they had to in three hours, rather than reading a novel."
Despite the miniaturist's unusual physical appearance in the show, it's still somewhat ambiguous whether or not she has magical powers, but according to Burton, she is decidedly not clairvoyant.
"She’s not a witch or a supernatural thing," Burton tells Town & Country.
"For me, she’s an educated observer—so she’s at the church, and she watches Marin’s behavior, and she kind of guesses as to her condition. She doesn’t predict that Marin will get pregnant. She hasn’t got seer talent," she says.
"In Amsterdam at the time, and still in the old part of Amsterdam, they just have these huge front windows, where you deliberately put yourself on display," says Burton.
"And all the front rooms were really beautifully dressed and furnished very richly furnished—and all the back rooms would have plain walls, dark walls to catch the smoke from the cooking. It was very much a world of surfaces. The miniaturist is there to penetrate that, and that’s why she’s a sort of terrifying presence for some. But she’s not a witch.”
As the digital director for Town & Country, Caroline Hallemann covers culture, entertainment, and a range of other subjects
