Juliette Binoche won the Best Actress prize in Cannes for her performance in this playful and provocative romantic drama from legendary auteur Abbas Kiarostami, his first feature made outside of Iran. Binoche plays a gallery owner living in a Tuscan village who attends a lecture by a British author (opera star William Shimell) on authenticity and fakery in art. Afterward, she invites him on a tour of the countryside, during which he is mistaken for her husband. They keep up the pretense and continue on their afternoon out, discussing love, life and art, and increasingly behaving like a long-married couple. But are they play-acting on a whim—or is there more to their seemingly new relationship than meets the eye?
“A marvelous, mind-blowing movie…a mind-bender, a piece of philosophical gamesmanship… His idea, which I'm way simplifying, is that originals are overrated and widely-circulated fakes can lead you to an understanding of the work.” —David Edelstein, NPR
“...The script is a knockout. The dialogue here sparkles with a raw realism that is breathtaking; there are speeches and entire sequences that run deep with emotion. However, Kiarostami’s words would never find purchase without the immaculate lead performances by Juliette Binoche and William Shimell. The duo are simply a tour de force….” —Kevin Jagernauth, IndieWire
“An endless hall of mirrors whose reflections multiply as its story of a middle-aged couple driving through Tuscany carries them into a metaphysical labyrinth...Ms. Binoche...humanizes the film and lends its theoretical substructure flesh and blood and emotional weight…She brings CERTIFIED COPY to intense, pulsing life.” —Stephen Holden, New York Times
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