Certified Copy

Rated 5.0

It’s another of those ephemeral roaming-couples films, one long enchanted walk-and-talk. Or is it? She (Juliette Binoche) runs a Tuscan village gallery; he (opera singer William Shimell, in his film debut) is the visiting author of a book about authenticity in art. They don’t know each other. Or do they? Like any meaningful relationship, it will be a puzzle of loving and gaming and sometimes getting hurt. Working outside his native Iran for the first time, director Abbas Kiarostami opts for an arty, Euro-modernist thought experiment. Yet the romance is real enough, thanks especially to the astonishing aliveness of Binoche, longstanding muse to many a great director, who seems to get more beautiful and maturely sensual with every performance. Plus, Kiarostami demands more of himself than merely a self-enclosing gimmick for its own sake. There is generosity here; the coyness is a come on. It is the rarest of moviemakers who gets the head and the heart swimming at once.