The Best Offer

What a phenomenal film fake. It's not about the finale or the structure of the screenplay, whose twist is predictable from halfway through. Focus on the captivating camera, life the themes and truths, Geoffrey Rush's performance, and the pure emotions. A film about love with all its positives and negatives, it only matters whether it works out or not. And at the same time, it points out that nothing may be as it initially seems. Absolutely complex, a masterpiece. (14/04/2014)

Like his hero, Tornatore is a bit of a museum exhibit, to whom the information age must seem like a deceitfully wounding enemy and film as an intimate room of certainty. Emotionally, the film stopped affecting me (intentionally) in the excessive second third, and whilst the twist is well thought out and well prepared, the conclusion is unnecessarily long and literal. Excellent actors (the duets of Rush - Sturgess / Rush - Sutherland are decorative), visually, it’s a great splendor (the reference to Sorrentino is not accidental - he and Tornatore still believe in the power of unnecessary gestures), and the musical background is perhaps too sentimental. A pleasant museum of nostalgia, folly and defensive detachment from reality. I liked the motifs of the thirteenth room, the automaton, and the truthful dwarf the most in this somewhat mechanical metaphor of uncertainty, creativity, and destructiveness of emotion. (11/09/2013)

I wasn't attracted to the film at first (art, drama, romance are not my thing), but Giuseppe Tornatore is awesome, and there is little that disappoints in his direction. The film has charming sets, antiques and furniture, decent actors and although it’s slower, the final twist is unbeatable. 80% (06/11/2016)

This is a movie that absolutely blew me away with its ending. I thought it would be just a specific romance, but it had so many additional elements. Whether it was the auction, one of the first robots, or that final twist that really settled with me. Giuseppe Tornatore continues to show that he has what it takes to make interesting films. This one turned out well, thanks to the great Geoffrey Rush. (28/04/2014)

I am sincerely sorry for the staff of that dive of a Prague beer bar Pivnice U Milosrdných; I can just see how tourists look in there curiously and then wonder “where has that sumptuous, stylish interior from that great but really depressing movie gotten to?" And I hope that Polanski sees it (the movie, not the beer) to learn in just half an hour what an adaptation of Club Dumas should look like. (07/07/2013)