I was able to find this fine movie on Netflix streaming. It moves neither slowly nor rapidly, it rather paints a portrait of a man and those he deals with. By the same director as one of my favorites, "The Legend of 1900."
There isn't much divulged about where this takes place but most filming locations are in Italy, but except for the American all characters speak as if they were British.
Geoffrey Rush, about 60, is the central figure as art expert and auctioneer Virgil Oldman. He even has his own auction firm which is highly respected. But old Virgil has more than a few quirks and one big secret. Among his quirks, always wearing gloves in public, even when dining at a fine restaurant, and holding a phone with a handkerchief while talking.
His secret is that he is obsessed with paintings of women and he collects them on the sly, enlisting the help of Donald Sutherland as Billy Whistler, to bid in his behalf. And sometimes even declaring an authentic painting a high-quality fake so that he can get it for a fraction of its value.
His life changes when he gets a call from a mysterious woman whose mother and father had recently died within a few weeks of each other and she needed to dispose of their estate of antique furniture and works of art. She is played by Sylvia Hoeks, about 27, as Claire Ibbetson, with such a bad phobia that she locks herself into her room any time others are in the house. She will not meet Oldman face-to-face.
The other key character is Jim Sturgess as handyman and instrument repair man Robert. Oldman finds parts of an old machine, gears etc, on the floors of the old home and enlists Robert to identify it and perhaps rebuild it. He thinks it might be an ancient contraption that when restored could fetch millions.
As the story unfolds Oldman begins to let his guard down and cares about this young woman, but is she everything he thinks she is?
Really a good movie, well played at just over 2 hours.
SPOILERS: Oldman gets sucked more and more into his affections for this young woman, an incident gets her to voluntarily go outside for the first time in years. She loses her inhibitions, she moves in with Oldman, they declare their love for each other. Now fully trusting her he shows her his hidden room filled with valuable paintings. When he gets back from London in what is to be his very last auction, he finds that she is gone, he takes a new painting and when he brings it into his hidden gallery he sees that all his paintings are gone. And then he finds out the quirky dwarf that hangs out at the bar across the street is named Claire and is the actual owner of the old house. She occasionally rents it out to film crews, they move in furniture and props only to move them out later. Oldman has been duped, Billy, Robert, and the fake Claire were all in on it, he was the victim of an elaborate scheme to steal his paintings worth millions. But he acquired many, perhaps most, of them dishonestly so maybe it was just justice!
There isn't much divulged about where this takes place but most filming locations are in Italy, but except for the American all characters speak as if they were British.
Geoffrey Rush, about 60, is the central figure as art expert and auctioneer Virgil Oldman. He even has his own auction firm which is highly respected. But old Virgil has more than a few quirks and one big secret. Among his quirks, always wearing gloves in public, even when dining at a fine restaurant, and holding a phone with a handkerchief while talking.
His secret is that he is obsessed with paintings of women and he collects them on the sly, enlisting the help of Donald Sutherland as Billy Whistler, to bid in his behalf. And sometimes even declaring an authentic painting a high-quality fake so that he can get it for a fraction of its value.
His life changes when he gets a call from a mysterious woman whose mother and father had recently died within a few weeks of each other and she needed to dispose of their estate of antique furniture and works of art. She is played by Sylvia Hoeks, about 27, as Claire Ibbetson, with such a bad phobia that she locks herself into her room any time others are in the house. She will not meet Oldman face-to-face.
The other key character is Jim Sturgess as handyman and instrument repair man Robert. Oldman finds parts of an old machine, gears etc, on the floors of the old home and enlists Robert to identify it and perhaps rebuild it. He thinks it might be an ancient contraption that when restored could fetch millions.
As the story unfolds Oldman begins to let his guard down and cares about this young woman, but is she everything he thinks she is?
Really a good movie, well played at just over 2 hours.
SPOILERS: Oldman gets sucked more and more into his affections for this young woman, an incident gets her to voluntarily go outside for the first time in years. She loses her inhibitions, she moves in with Oldman, they declare their love for each other. Now fully trusting her he shows her his hidden room filled with valuable paintings. When he gets back from London in what is to be his very last auction, he finds that she is gone, he takes a new painting and when he brings it into his hidden gallery he sees that all his paintings are gone. And then he finds out the quirky dwarf that hangs out at the bar across the street is named Claire and is the actual owner of the old house. She occasionally rents it out to film crews, they move in furniture and props only to move them out later. Oldman has been duped, Billy, Robert, and the fake Claire were all in on it, he was the victim of an elaborate scheme to steal his paintings worth millions. But he acquired many, perhaps most, of them dishonestly so maybe it was just justice!