Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In Tuscany to promote his latest book, a middle-aged English writer meets a French woman who leads him to the village of Lucignano.
Kiarostami's Certified Copy is a genuinely singular work — its sustained ambiguity about whether the couple are strangers or long-married is not a gimmick but a philosophical inquiry into authenticity, originality, and relationships, mirroring the book-within-film's thesis. Binoche delivers one of her finest performances, emotionally raw and mercurial, earning her Cannes Best Actress; Shimell is quietly effective as the distanced writer. The Tuscan cinematography is painterly and purposeful, each location freighted with meaning. The film's conception is truly one-of-a-kind — Kiarostami's European debut channels Rossellini's Journey to Italy while forging something unmistakably his own. The plot's elliptical structure is its greatest strength but also a mild liability for those seeking narrative clarity, and the ending, while tonally resonant, leaves some threads unresolved in ways that feel more evasive than deliberate.