gregking4 Review of The Best Offer

The Best Offer (2013)

a strange mix of drama, psychological suspense and romance

[7/10 · 22 July 2013]

The first English language feature film from director Giuseppe Tornatore, best known for his marvelous homage to film with Cinema Paradisio, is a strange mix of drama, psychological suspense and romance. It tells the story of Virgil Oldham (played by Geoffrey Rush), an eccentric and unscrupulous art auctioneer who has a scam going with his long time partner in crime Billy (an underused Donald Sutherland). Oldham is able to easily spot fakes, but he also has an eye for deceiving desperate sellers regarding the worth of their forgotten masterpieces. Oldham is vain, cynical, fastidious and emotionally dry, until he is asked to evaluate the furniture of a house being sold. The house belongs to the reclusive, agoraphobic Claire (Dutch actress Sylvia Hoeks), who has shut herself off from the world and refuses to emerge from a secret room within the house. Oldham finds himself drawn to help Claire overcome her phobia. The Best Offer moves at a slow, measured pace that slowly draws the audience into its world of deception. Just when we think we have it all figured out, Tornatore manages to pull the rug from under our feet. This is one of those films that almost demands to be seen twice so that you can unravel the puzzle and put the various pieces together. The film has been gorgeously shot on location in Italy, Prague and Vienna by cinematographer Fabio Zamarion (Respiro, etc), and the lush score by Tornatore's regular collaborator Ennio Morricone adds to the atmosphere. Rush delivers a strong performance as a cold and unsympathetic character. Sutherland sleepwalks his way through an undemanding role, while Jim Sturgess is solid as a gifted young mechanic who can fix old clockwork pieces.