The Best Offer Review

I had been thinking of watching The Best Offer for a while now because the synopsis was intriguing. When I finally sat down to it, I was not disappointed.  It is a romantic mystery about an eccentric Managing Director of an auction house who takes on a young reclusive woman as a client and, against his better judgment, falls in love with her.

The movie has an air of cold elegance and dark intrigue. Virgil, an esteemed auctioneer, is a passionate art collector who prides himself on his art expertise. He is even called upon to check the authenticity of paintings and expose forged works of art. While doing so, he explains, with poetic grace, the subtle art of detecting forgery.

The painter, who recreates a work of art, does so with great skill and passion and cannot resist leaving his mark, either by the stroke of a brush or by the concealment of a personal signature.

“…there is always something authentic concealed in every forgery.”

Virgil knows all there is to know of art but, in matters of life and love, he is as ingenuous as a child. His best friend, and colleague, Billy, warns him that emotions are no different from art; though beautiful, they can sometimes be fake. Virgil does not understand the import of those words.

In the course of his work, he meets and falls for Claire Ibbetson, a woman twenty years younger than him. He is drawn to her reclusive nature and secretive ways and enchanted by her beauty. He befriends her and over a period of time, falls in love with her. She reciprocates his interest and ardour, awakening hope in his unloved and jaded heart. When he claims her hand and lays his heart at her feet, she leaves him along with his best friend, robbing him of his beloved art.

Billy’s friendship with Virgil was a forgery. Billy resented Virgil for belittling his artistic works. He betrayed his trust by manipulating him and stealing all his art. A young and talented mechanic, Robert, who befriended Virgil and helped him construct an automaton, manipulated him to pursue Claire and fall for her charms. In all his fake relationships, the one thing authentic was Virgil’s.

He could never truly recover from the heartbreak of losing Claire because it is a betrayal of the cruellest kind… to be denied love for most of your life, to discover it later on, to trust it against your better judgement and open yourself up like you never dared before… and then to have your heart cast away without a backward glance. I can only imagine his pain.

Their relationship was based on a lie, yet what he felt was truer than anything he had ever felt before. Even though she deserted him, a part of her loved him for his trusting and implicit love. Claire may have felt something for him, she certainly hinted at it when last they spoke, assuring him that no matter what he should know that she did love him; but his unconditional love was not enough for her, he was not good enough for her. She left him without so much as a goodbye… Yet, sometimes I wonder if she thought he was too good for her and that she was not worthy of his love.  I suppose love, on its own, is not enough.

At the end of the movie, he sits in a café which she once spoke of fondly, facing the door and waiting. The moment is poignant because, in spite of her betrayal, his love for her never died. Though their relationship was a forgery, his love for her was authentic and though she betrayed him, hers was too.

Rating- 3.5/5