One Last Deal

One Last Deal is a 2018 Finnish drama film directed by Klaus Härö and written by Anna Heinämaa. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot Olavi runs a small now failing art dealership and just want to makes one last deal before closing up (despite another younger dealer saying that the last elderly dealer who closed his business died six months after retiring). His teenage grandson, Otto, whom Olavi recognises only after some while, arrives at the gallery and demands Olavi fill out paperwork for work experience but Olavi says there is no work for him now. Later, Olavi's daughter and Otto's mother Lea, who is also estranged to Olavi, arrives begging him to take on Otto as no one else will take Otto due to his record of poor behaviour including theft. Having recently seen a small unsigned portrait of someone who may be a Russian monk or a peasant which he wishes to research prior to an upcoming auction, the library refusing to send books to him for that research, and being unable to close the shop lest he lose a needed sale, Olavi reluctantly takes on Otto. Otto, although largely uninterested in the job, does manage to make a sale for greater than the ticket price and runs to the library where he brags about his sale and decides he will pocket the difference since the purchase was for more than Olavi was asking. Olavi has Otto join in the research and, when Otto starts off unenthusiastically, demands that Otto do better. Olavi attempts to inculcate in Otto a love of art and seems to make a small break through with Iltaa kohti (Towards the Evening) by Hugo Simberg, a portrait of a two people, and elderly man at the end of his life and a young boy at the beginning. Olavi finds the entry "Kristus 33 x 41 cm, olja på duk" (Christ 33 x 41, oil on canvas) in a small booklet about an art exhibition with the dimensions matching the painting but no photograph so it is suggestive but not proof. Olavi roles his eyes when Otto suggests googling it but Otto decides to do this anyway, finding address of the woman who lent the painting to the exhibition. He travels there alone, discovers it is a care facility, that the woman has died, and pretends he is a distant relative. The nurse allows him in and says to take what he wants, the rest will be dumped and Otto searches.