Normal Guy 50-Words-Or-Less-Plot: A woman buys a painting at thrift shop for $5. She finds out it is possibly a genuine painting done by the mid-20th century American artist, Jackson Pollock. This is the documentary of her struggle to get it authenticated.

Meet Teri Horton. She is a former truck driver who purchased an unsigned painting for $5 at a thrift shop.  It turns out after some research by her and others the painting may be a genuine work by Jackson Pollock and worth millions.

Ms. Horton has no more than an eighth-grade education and she has lived hard. She’s also smart. As she pursues her quest to get this painting authenticated, the documentary centers not only on her life and Jackson Pollock but the debate between connoisseurship (offered the art pros) and forensic science.

Director Harry Moses tries to make Horton somewhat colorful and his agenda seems pretty clear. Moses calls into question the idea of provenance (something I knew nothing about).  The idea is you have to be able to trace the painting back to the artist by way of who has owned it. But Moses tries another route; forensics. The art snobs draw their line in the sand to keep out Horton and people like her. But their hackles go up when these self-satisfied protectors of an artificially narrow type of legal art insider trading are threatened by forensic science (fingerprints and all).

You learn Horton turned down a $2 million offer for the painting, no questions asked.  She was also offered and refused a $9 million offer from Saudi Arabia after the documentary was complete.  She claims authentication of the work is not a matter of money, but of principle.