The Best Offer (2013)

Can you make a fascinating movie about an auctioneer? As you can imagine the auction itself could be exciting, with people in the room and on the phone trying to outbid each other to get their hands on some specific art. But what if the auction has ended? As The Best Offer proves you can do a whole lot to make sure the viewer is on the edge of his seat.

Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush) is an auctioneer who is one of the best around and who travels around the world to lead various auctions. He is an art expert who can see if a painting is authentic and regularly gets request to make all the arrangements for a new auction. He is called by a woman who wants to auction off all the art her deceased parents left her. He makes an appointment with the woman and heads to her house. It is old, partly falling apart and he is waiting patiently for her. When she calls to say she can’t come he is furious. He’s a man who wants to have everything under control, but keeps contact with others to a minimum. When he does not succeed in setting up new meetings he slowly becomes obsessed by her and wants to find out who this mysterious woman is. It will be a search to reveal who she is, but where he will also show sides of himself he normally keeps hidden.

The thing which makes this such a fantastic movie is the way the movie slowly builds. First you get to know the main character, including his strange ways. He lives in his own world, always wears gloves and doesn’t allow anyone close to him. As the story progresses he slowly needs to change all that. He wants to know the woman, but as he seems to have had no experience at all with women he has to ask a restorer for help.

Geoffrey Rush is amazing in his role, showing a cold man who slowly has to change. The story strongly reminded of old Hitchcock movies and there are several red herrings tricking the viewer. The Best Offer shows that a story about an auctioneer can be exciting. It is a movie I can really recommend you see.