The Best Offer

Virgil Oldman is managing director of a leading auction house. He is a man with his own individual style who regularly dyes his hair, never goes out without his finest leather gloves and tries to reveal as little as possible of his emotional world. In a secret hall inside the villa in which he lives alone, he has collected hundreds of masterful, priceless paintings from many different eras. He has succeeded in acquiring these paintings, all of them portraits of women, during his own auctions with the help of his old friend Billy. One day, Oldman receives a special assignment: a mysterious young woman, who refuses to appear in person, asks him to sell her family’s antiques. But Oldman is not only interested in the classical painting, furniture and material on offer. He becomes increasingly fascinated by the mysterious incognito woman, who will only communicate with him from behind thick walls and heavy doors.
Giuseppe Tornatore directs his stylish film about passions, neuroses and intrigue with panache and a sense of morbid sophistication. He has chosen to set his plot’s surprising twists and turns in picturesque locations in Bolzano, Merano, Vienna and Prague.