Nearing 60, Cricket lives a simple life in Phuket, Thailand. He has a casual relationship with Gwen, a 51-year-old who runs a tour business, and works at a studio owned by Ewan and Julianne. Alongside his coworkers, Sokha and Gregor, Cricket creates copies of famous paintings for tourists. Recently, he has started adding secret, anomalous details to his reproductions of Picasso’s Guernica. When Ewan asks him to paint a Botero, Cricket convinces him to let him copy a Lucian Freud portrait of Queen Elizabeth II instead. 

Gwen brings a British couple, Patty and Henry, to the studio. The two are television personalities who decide to purchase Cricket’s copy of a little-known Camille Pissarro painting. They are delighted by the idea of passing the piece off as an authentic work from their private collection.

While swimming with Cricket, Gwen suggests he could earn more money by copying lesser-known paintings for wealthy clients who want to create a similar illusion of owning originals. Cricket reveals that his boss, Ewan, once offered to bring him into a forgery business copying Franz Klines, but Cricket declined the risky proposition. 

After dinner, Gwen returns to her own apartment. Alone, Cricket is stunned to receive an email from Olympia, whom he has not seen or heard from in seven years.