The problem I had was that even tho I knew I was supposed to find Geoffrey Rush's character unscrupulous, vain, and evil (something Donald Sutherland can pull off with a glance), he is just too damn likable, even when he is seemingly insufferable, to want to see his comeuppance, which the film telegraphs from the beginning. Rush is a great actor, but no matter what I LIKE him!
shareI'm not sure this is a problem. "Evil" seems like a stretch. Unscrupulous and chilly, as well as often rude, no doubt, but evil... evil is what was done to him.
Virgil was not, in my opinion, meant to be entirely unsympathetic. I've said in other posts, I thought stealing his collection was fair game, but manipulating him into falling in love for the one and only time in his life, then breaking his heart like that, was unconscionably cruel.
Which of course was the point. Billy wanted to destroy his onetime friend utterly... and he did.
"Oh, dear. Mr. Dictionary seems to have deserted us again."
I didn't find him likable, but he was definitely vulnerable, and his one vulnerability (his lonely heart) was the most human thing about him.
But I couldn't much feel for him in the end. He was pulling the con of his life on (fake) Claire, stealing the automaton piece by piece right out from under her nose.
True, but she was deliberately leaving pieces for him to find, in order to tempt him to do exactly that, and it was a fake anyway. He also was planning to share his privileged life and substantial fortune with her. I think it's a wash, there.
"Look! I'm a prostitute robot from the future!"
I would not have called Virgil "evil." He was a con artist, and he got the ultimate con in the end. I liked him too; I think you were supposed to. Or at least realize his vulnerability and feel somewhat bad for him or some empathy towards his faulty character. The guy has never had a real girlfriend in his entire life, only a roof full of paintings. I felt like he rather deserved being ripped off by the very friend who helped him rip people off, but on the other hand I don't think he deserved to have his emotions shredded so badly. I figured he'd either lose his marbles entirely, or go on a shooting spree.
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