Virgil Oldman, the lead character in ‘The Best Offer‘, Giuseppe Tornatore‘s 2013 film, is an expert in detecting artistic fakes. He also is a hypochondriac and an old bachelor. As skilled as he is in art, he seems as ignorant of human relations. A mistake of appreciation in his profession can lead to underestimation or overestimation of a work of art. A misjudgment in personal relationships can lead to disaster in one’s personal life. Will the hero of the movie know how to avoid the errors of appreciation? You will find the answer to this question by watching this film by Giuseppe Tornatore. My problem with this director is that he once made ‘Cinema Paradiso‘, one of the few films I appreciated with a rating of 10 on IMDB, and a couple more with a grade of 9. From here the comparison is difficult, and I had quite many reasons to be disappointed. It is one of those movies that the audiences loved more than the film critics. In this case, and this is a rarity, my opinion is closer to that of the critics than that of the public.
Virgil Oldman is also an art collector and a bit of a scammer, enriching his collection by undervaluing works he likes and buying them at a price well below the real value through an accomplice, a painter himself, who is constantly complaining that his talent is not appreciated. His private life is zero, but as a surrogate he has a formidable art collection composed exclusively of portraits of women. When he is called to evaluate the remaining legacy of Claire, a mysterious agoraphobic young woman who has not left the dilapidated villa where she lives for years, his interest will shift from the collection of paintings and art objects to the person of the woman, of whom he slowly , slowly, he falls in love. The confident and facts-of-life advisor to the aging bachelor is Robert, a young and brilliant mechanic, whom he entrusts with assembling the parts of an 18th-century automata, parts of which are found scattered in the various rooms of the villa. When the woman finally reveals herself, the two seem to become a couple in love, overcoming their respective phobia and enjoying happily the relationship despite the age difference. Too good to be true? You bet it.
‘The Best Offer‘ is a film about art, beautifully filmed by Fabio Zamarion, the music being composed by Ennio Morricone. The cast is remarkable, with Geoffrey Rush as Virgil Oldman, Donald Sutherland (getting better as the years go by), Jim Sturgess and Sylvia Hoeks as the people surrounding Oldman. The plot combines art with erotica and with a detective story. Almost all the prerequisites for a very good movie would be gathered, but a few essentials still don’t work. First of all, the location of the story. ‘The Best Offer‘ is one of those English-speaking international productions, but the filming takes place in Italy with Italian being spoken even in the café opposite the villa, which plays an important role in the story. This detail of authenticity is one of the signs that caught my attention from the start. The age gap between the main hero, his mysterious girlfriend and the young confidant are not played out truthfully. Geoffrey Rush is an excellent actor but he doesn’t have enough charisma to justify his relationship with Claire, even to himself. I was expecting more than just a beautiful aesthetic film from a director like Giuseppe Tornatore, who had brought many authentic and emotional stories to screen. The professional expertise of the film’s hero, Virgil Goldman, is the detection of fakes in the world of art. ‘The Best Offer‘ seems at times one of those fakes.