The first English language feature film from director Giuseppe Tornatore, best known for his marvellous homage to film with Cinema Paradisio, is a mix of drama, psychological suspense and romance.
The film tells the story of Virgil Oldham (Geoffrey Rush), an eccentric and unscrupulous art auctioneer who has a scam going with his long time partner in crime Billy ( 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 masterpeices. Oldham is vain, cynical, fastidious and emotionally dry, until he is aked to evaluate the furniture of a house being sold. The house bleongs to the reclusive, agoraphobic Claire (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. The film has been gorgeously shot on location in Italy, Prague and Vienna by cinematographer Fabio Zamarion, and the lush score by Tornatore’s regular collaborator Ennio Morricone adds to the atmosphere.
