The filmmaking
in The Best Offer is absolutely
breathtaking, a spectacular reminder of the seemingly effortless talent still
remaining in veteran director Giuseppe Tornatore’s bag of tricks. This
magnificent display of old school ability may also be the downfall of The Best Offer, whose narrative can
never live up to the perfection in Tornatore’s technique. It isn’t a bad story,
just one with substance undeserving of the film’s perfection in style. Every
aspect of the film is exemplary, from production design to the cinematography
capturing it, Ennio Morricone’s brilliant soundtrack to the sound effects evoking emotion out of
seemingly arbitrary actions within the film. All of the filmmaking is expertly
capable, but none of it deserving of the fairly derivative and predictable
Hitchcockian screenplay Tornatore provides.
Tornatore once
again brings us a lonely protagonist, flawed by solitary obsession of
art. In Cinema Paradiso it was a love
of cinema, music in The Legend of 1900,
and in The Best Offer it is fine art and antiques which takes up the life of
famed auctioneer Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush). This passion is somewhat
tainted in Virgil, however, due to his quick temper, superiority complex and a
secret hoarding of artwork deemed worthy of his private collection. To make
matters even worse, and simultaneously forshadowing a likely fall from grace,
Virgil’s means of collecting these pieces of historically significant artwork
are less than honorable, utilizing the help of a loyally silent cohort (Donald
Sutherland) at his auctions.
Virgil’s strict
regiment of distancing himself from others extends as far as his tendency to
dine alone. He does not even remove his gloves to dine, so that he is never in
direct physical contact with the world around him. All of this routine and
carefully constructed behavior is turned upside down when Virgil is invited to
appraise the home of a reclusive young heiress named Claire (Sylvia Hoeks).
Virgil finds his own methods of distancing people begin to fall away as he is
exposed to Claire’s extreme behavior, going further than agoraphobia to the
point that she does not even allow others to see her face-to-face in her own
home.
The great
mystery of Tornatore’s screenplay is simply what genre he is working within,
and that is not revealed until near the end of the final act. Once this is
discovered, the twists and turns in the ending are easily predicted, but that
makes them no less a joy to watch in the skilled hands of the artists
collaborating here. Rush is mesmerizing in the tragically flawed role,
Tornatore is a master of invoking emotion from cinematic technique, and this is
effortlessly helped along by longtime musical collaborator Morricone. Despite
the flaws of the film, it is still a joy to watch these professionals at work.
The DVD includes
only a trailer for special features.
Entertainment Value:
8/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 8.5/10
Historical
Significance: 6/10
Special Features: 2/10
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