First of all, the movie looks gorgeous…the colours are bright and saturated yet softened so that everything is clear. Not surprisingly, it is a Netflix film, which uses this technique (as you mentioned in a post) to lure viewers in.
Geoffrey Rush carries the film, and he is magnificent. His Pirates of the Caribbean co-star Johnny Depp should go for roles like this, as he is ageing. Sylvia Hoeks emanates beauty and vulnerability,
The last 20 minutes of this film make it special.
How he processes what was done to him…the aftermath…all that he lost that he thought he had…that was awesome.
The viewer knows that he is being taken for a ride…hot young things don’t take on men their father’s age no matter what they suffer from…but he wants to believe the Disney movie…the prince rescuing the forlorn maiden shut in by the dragons of her mind. After a life of swindling and lying, he wants to believe some things can’t be faked.
All the swindlers refuse his cash or give him clues: from Robert who returns his cheque, Billy who doesn’t want extra money - despite knowing $8 million is the prize!, to Robert’s girl Sarah, who tells him Billy is not to be trusted…
They buys his trust by refusing the money.
And as a swindler himself, he knows trust can’t be bought.
Robert returns his cheque on two conditions: the 2nd condition is let’s keep your business separate from your personal affairs but Robert willingly breaks condition 2, buying his trust…which should have made him re-think.
Virgil doesn’t take advice from his married peers: it would lower him in their eyes. He looks down on his assistant so he doesn’t take him too seriously. (Though his assistant’s advice about relationships, likening the man to an auctioneer, and the woman to a buyer was excellent).
So his peers are too close, and his assistant is too far but Robert is goldilocks…just right…he works for Virgil but doesn’t depend on him, doesn’t move in appraiser circles, and most importantly, is successful with the ladies…lesson…isolation can be dangerous.
Yet only your friend can betray you.
Claire says says every forger leaves something genuine in his forgery that gives him away, and the camera focuses on that sharp appraising look in her eye…man. Not to mention her long disappearance…making him late…but by then he is hooked. He is too far gone, beyond reason, beyond rationality.
But back to the paradox: isolation is dangerous…Virgil was too isolated…but only your friend can truly betray you.
For me the heart of the film is not what Claire did to him (she really works him over, doesn’t she? Push and pull, hot and cold, well enough to go outside and wear a pretty dress, but not well enough to go out after that…).
The heart of the film is the conversation summing up years of dealing with Billy. Billy buys back the genuine painting for 250K which Virgil can get 8 mil for. Virgil doesn’t say man, we’ll split that 50-50 or 60-40 when its sold …he just says well done…
Years of this kind of treatment makes him hatch the scheme.
Messages: Take care of your friends. Don’t fall in love!
ok i re-watched the movie yesterday so i’m ready to comment …
the cast overall was fairly small and made up of good actors which is generally a good formula. a few good actors is better than many bad ones. i think adult dramas tend to use the few good actors formula while movies for teenagers use the many bad ones formula.
actually that was the part i least liked about the movie on 1st watch. i felt it was insulting to the audience to spell everything out instead of letting us figure those things out on our own. but on the flip side it saved me a lot of time not having to watch any analysis videos and in fact i checked and there aren’t any - that last 20 minutes is really the analysis.
actually i think what makes the movie work is that the viewer SUSPECTS it but doesn’t know, which creates the tension that makes him keep watching …
disagree on this one. Elon Musk’s father ( 76 ) is sleeping with his stepdaughter ( 34 ) which makes it a 42 year age gap … they have two children together. this is about the same age gap as Virgil and Claire had in the movie. but according to Elon Musk’s father himself his stepdaughter has “reached out to him for help” ( i assume she needed money ) and that’s when he started fucking her. So she was first his stepdaughter, then his prostitute and now the mother of his children. So it’s not that 40 year age gap is insurmountable it’s that Elon Musk’s father’s stepdaughter really needed him ( for money ) whereas Claire only pretended to need Virgil ( emotionally ).
life is a mix of reality and illusions that must be carefully managed just like we must carefully manage short term vs long term goals and work / life balance. completely rejecting illusions like me doesn’t seem to be a good strategy. it seems the winning strategy is embracing only those illusions which you can enforce into persisting to the point where whether they were ever real becomes a moot point. for example - what does it matter if your woman really loves you if she is too afraid of you finding out that she doesn’t to do anything ? in this case the illusion might as well be reality - if a bear shits in the woods type of deal …
Billy tells him that any emotion can be faked while Robert says it can’t be COMPLETELY faked and Claire asks him to clarify his own comment about authenticity of every forgery …
this is definitely an important aspect of the movie - Virgil constantly gives people money which they sometimes gladly accept and sometimes reject - and you are right, the ones who reject it to make a show of what great friends they are - are the ones who who are orchestrating the back stabbing. the only one who thanks him for the tip ( the bartender across the street from villa ) is an honest person.
yes Robert Greene has a chapter about this but this isn’t the only lesson.
the other lesson is TRUST NO ONE.
and finally Robert Greene has yet another chapter that is even more relevant here, titled " know who you’re dealing with - do not offend the wrong person " …
in this case Virgil has offended Billy by telling him that he isn’t a real artist … Robert Greene teaches to NEVER joke about somebody’s taste as they will never forgive you, and Robert Greene also teaches about a type of person he calls " a serpent with a long memory " which is a type of person who will never show they were offended but wait their entire life until the moment is right to exact their revenge on you … Billy is that person.
Billy didn’t betray Virgil - it was revenge. Billy gets back to the point more than once - there is absolutely no doubt about this - it’s the entire point of the movie. Billy punishes Virgil for not believing in him as an artist. I lost my best friend this way myself ( by not believing in him ). I have read many people expressing this sentiment about others not believing in them - people really take this shit seriously. I haven’t experienced this myself because everybody always believed in me including all of my enemies, but i know many people can’t get over others not believing in them.
yes the classic hot and cold / presence and absence. occupy the mind of the victim by making them wonder what they did wrong to upset you ( beta hamstering ). she also played the damsel in distress to activate his white knighting instincts as well.
close … the heart of the film is when Billy ( twice at different points of the movie ) tells Virgil that all he ever wanted was for Virgil to recognize him as a great artist …
yes it was Billy behind the scheme and yes he did it because he was hurt by Virgil but it wasn’t about Virgil not treating him well, it was about Virgil not recognizing him as an artist …
the real message when it comes to friends is not to offend them …
and as for Love maybe the message is to get hurt early when you still have time to recover from it …
going back to the subject of Billy a crucial element of the film is the portrait of a “dancer” … Claire tells Virgil that it’s a portrait of her mother but of course this is the portrait of her that Billy painted …
Virgil tells Billy that technical skill isn’t what makes somebody an artist, that an artist is made by his “inner mystery” and that this is something Billy never had … Billy ends up proving Virgil wrong by serving him with the very mystery Virgil thought Billy was incapable of …
in the end not only is Billy’s portrait of a “dancer” the only one left … but Virgil actually takes it with him to Prague, which you can see when Virgil is carrying some wrapped up painting at a train station …
Billy’s revenge isn’t to rob Virgil ( he didn’t need the money ) but to make his own painting both the most important one in Virgil’s collection ever as well as the only one remaining …
when Billy tells Virgil at the last auction that he is sending his painting Virgil jokes by saying " i promise not to burn it " implying that Billy’s paintings are of no value … yet in the end it is the only portrait he is left with and he takes it with him to Prague …
Billy just wanted to prove to Virgil that he was a real artist and he did …
this idea that art is about some " personal mystery " is also echoed in the German film " never look away " as well as in " the million dollar hotel " …
keep in mind that movies are made by artists and writers, which is why they are often about artists and writers … in the case of " the best offer " Billy is that artist …
artists want is to be acknowledged as such … which is something Virgil never granted Billy and paid the price …
as obvious as this is in hind sight i also missed it on the first viewing, because almost the entire movie is spent on Claire and the Automaton and both Billy and “the Dancer” are treated as something of secondary importance throughout the film and only at the very end we realize Billy was behind everything …
on second viewing i paid much more attention to Billy and the portrait of the dancer …
Yeah…money answers everything. The universal Viagra.
when Billy tells Virgil at the last auction that he is sending his painting Virgil jokes by saying " i promise not to burn it " implying that Billy’s paintings are of no value … yet in the end it is the only portrait he is left with and he takes it with him to Prague …
Billy just wanted to prove to Virgil that he was a real artist and he did …
Hmmm…very interesting…I didn’t talk about this because I thought Billy agreed…painfully with Virgil that he was not a great artist, and years of put-downs soured the relationship so I put the revenge first and neglected the acknowledgement.
If I were Billy I would have used a different appraiser for my own work.
My own parents stopped believing in me when I was around 11 so I don’t expect others to do so…a blind spot for me in the viewing of the film.
But that comment about the mystery is brilliant…it takes a lifetime but he finally produces the mystery Virgil spoke of.
It is said that art is the craft of illusion.
Billy, Claire and Robert produce great works of art - the theft of his trust, the automaton and the painting.
The problem is as one experiences more of life…it is impossible to maintain certain illusions, or more to the point…impossible to appear as though you still care. Hopefully, one gets strong enough to both bear the unvarnished truth as time marches on and to still make some pretence.
What happens is that your filter just drops.
And facing life with no illusions…when young…man…
I’m glad I’m not young now. In this blackpilled time.
I lost my best friend this way myself ( by not believing in him ).
Damn…sorry to hear that.
i think adult dramas tend to use the few good actors formula while movies for teenagers use the many bad ones formula.
Keeps the movie cheap using fresh blood.
The leads in this film are more expensive than any 10 hot young things.
And they are worth it.
i felt it was insulting to the audience to spell everything out instead of letting us figure those things out on our own.
Not for me…I knew he was being conned by her…as Virgil’s assistant says women go for the best offer…and Virgil was not…agoraphobia be damned.
What I enjoyed was not the reveal but watching Virgil process it. That was excellent.
i always saw him as a scammer from a Jewish family of scammers …
actually his pops was flipping antiques on eBay …
it wasn’t really my fault that i looked down on him but that of my parents, because my sadist parents taught me to despise success and look down on hustlers …
as you know they pretty much taught me the opposite of all the values necessary to succeed …
in my mind at the time if somebody was a hustler it was because they were not good enough to make it honestly, like somebody was actually going to recognize my talents and reward them LOL
of course now i know that the most successful people in the world like Elon Musk are also the biggest scammers and scamming is their main job while what they pretend to do ( like engineering ) is more of a cover for the scams …
life is about scamming and ass kissing ( or cock sucking in case of women ) your way to the top …
my friend was doing it right and i despised him for it because of the brainwashing from my sadist parents who wanted me to fail …
I was taught this same nonsense…it must be a generational thing.
The truth is people admire success…they just don’t want to know how you got it done.
I don’t blame the Lance Armstrongs of the world for taking drugs; I blame them for getting caught.
In my mind, it isn’t building a bridge where wrong numbers mean something…sports is just entertainment.
Even Elon is just building luxury sports cars under the pretence of being eco-friendly. It is just a status toy for the rich. If you want a car that does what it should, Toyota is always there.
To ramble further, I first realised I was a little different when Milli Vanilli was uncovered.
You probably don’t remember them: two muscular dreads singing pop songs who were ditched by their studio. They had two fat white dudes singing in the studio and they would lip sync at concerts.
Arista records pulled the plug when they kept insisting they wanted to sing.
People were hurt, betrayed…blah, blah, blah. I didn’t care.
I liked their songs but the illusion was gone so no more Milli Vanilli.