Certified Copy

2011
7.2| 1h46m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 11 March 2011 Released
Producted By: France 3 Cinéma
Country: Italy
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/certified-copy
Info

In Tuscany to promote his latest book, a middle-aged English writer meets a French woman who leads him to the village of Lucignano.

Genre

Drama, Romance

Watch Online

Certified Copy (2011) is now streaming with subscription on AMC+

Director

Abbas Kiarostami

Production Companies

France 3 Cinéma

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Certified Copy Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story
BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Cleveronix A different way of telling a story
Christopher Culver Abbas Kiarostami's last few films were made outside his native Iran, and his 2010 effort CERTIFIED COPY is set in the colourful towns and countryside of Tuscany. Its two main characters have arrived in Italy from elsewhere: a Frenchwoman (never named, and played by Juliette Binoche) has lived in Arezzo for several years now, running an antique shop, while James (William Shimell) is an Englishman invited to lecture on an art history book that he has written.As the film opens, James is in fact giving that lecture, speaking of how a high-quality copy of a work of art may said to be better than the original. He soon meets the French antiques dealer, and the two spend an afternoon touring the nooks and crannies of Tuscany. With the Frenchwoman's awkwardness and Jame's suave, confident air, Kiarostami is clearly riffing on the romantic comedies of the last two decades. But then the film takes a magical-realist turn: the two begin speaking as if they have been married for many years already. The apparent relationship between the two continues to evolve and morph over the course of the film's 106 minutes (and what seems to be for them just a Sunday afternoon spent together) as Kiarostami broods on the nature of marriage as the years go by: people change over time, a husband and wife will eventually be rather copies of their youthful selves, but will they be copies better than the originals, or a sad mockery of their youthful idealism? For anyone who has been married (people who haven't may not get much of the film), CERTIFIED COPY is a moving evocation of the rigours of staying together with another person, and the shadowy undercurrents of even apparently happy unions. However, I was ultimately left with mixed feelings. Starting this film with a highly didactic lecture was, in my opinion, a bad choice: no audience wants to feel lectured to right off the bat. Then, the script is a bit too conversation-driven, becoming in parts a logorrhea that will overwhelm even viewers who can understand its trilingual French-Italian-English dialogue (it's probably horrible for those who rely on subtitles). Kiarostami could have trimmed the dialogue without sacrificing any part of his message.Before making this film, Shimell had been known only as an opera singer on the stages of Europe. He manages to make the leap to film actor quite well, with all the subtlety that his role requires -- indeed, I know someone quite like James in both background and personality, and Shimell's depiction bore a resemblance so close it was chilling. Juliette Binochedeftly manages to change her mood and bearing instantly to signal another shift in the film's intrigue. In spite of the European setting, much of Kiarostami's personal technique remains (as well as general aspects of the Iranian New Wave like only the voices of minor roles heard, with the characters themselves not shown on screen).
Eva M This is film is definitely worth seeing if you are ready to confront your own personal -love - daemons.I won't go summarize the plot of the film, since previous reviewers have done it already. But what I will tell you is what this film is really about and why should anyone spend 1 hour and 46 minutes to see it. (It is interesting though that many reviewers approach this mesmerizing film in so many different ways.)In my opinion, this film is about love relationships and our copies of them: how we form them, what we expect, what we get and where things could possibly reach a dead-end. When I say copies of relationships I don't mean extra-marital affairs, I mean ALL romantic relationships. We begin a relationship by falling in love with the copy of the other person; the one we form in our minds, our idealized notion of him or her. We, then, dive into a relationship by first making a copy of its supposed present and supposed future in our own heads: how it should go, what would be great, what should bring us happiness etc. The years pass and we still live with this copy of a relationship, but yet we are not happy as we have been taught that only the original is the one that matters. But then again, reality can kill love very quickly and the romance can get out the window before we know it.One moment that I believe is crucial to my viewpoint is at the beginning: the scene were the two protagonists are in the car (and it is repeated at the end in another form) is when Elle mentions how her sister, Mary, loves copies and that although her sister's husband stutters, her sister finds it very romantic the way her husband calls her: "MMM MM Mary" That is probably something that most viewers will not give it the attention it deserves. I think this little part of a scene shows what, in my opinion, Kiarostami is really trying to say in the whole film: If you want to live in a happy love relationship and be happy with your partner.. Then, accept that you fell in love with your own copy of your partner, you are living with your own copy of your relationship, you acknowledge that this is your own copy, and at the same time you admire it for being a copy in your mind - In a "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder" kind of way..We could never fall in love without the copies each of us create in our heads, so what could we do? Acknowledge and Embrace them!It is true I fell for the trap to analyze what is going on between the two protagonists.. Are they flirting? Do they know each other? Did the have a relationship? Is the kid his? Are they married?But I soon realized this was not the point. Most films that leave loose ends, usually 'demand' from us to analyze the plot and the characters, if we want to uncover what could really be the ending. But this film is different and it demands you will find the answers in your life and your romantic relationships, not in the plot or characters. I must give merit to both protagonists for their playing, they were both great. Binoche plays the woman as a universal stereotype and Shimell plays the man as a universal stereotype . Binoche is the emotional person in the relationship and Shimell is the intellectual one. I can see why most people praise Binoche and they don't like Shimell, as emotional reactions more immediate to understand than intellectual ones. Binoche is indeed wonderful and I couldn't agree more that maybe this is one of the best roles she has ever played. However, I enjoyed Shimell as well, as he was outstanding in his role. He could communicate with his face, body positions and gestures what he was thinking, which if you ask me is much harder for an actor to do. The intellectual personality has a more limited palette of emotional expressions (NOT feelings!Don't get me wrong!) than an emotional one.Photography and location of the film are outstanding. I didn't know Kiarostami before this film, but let me tell you he's just got one more fan.See it: 1. if you liked "Before the Sunrise" type of films, 2. if you love Binoche 3. if like films that give you an intellectual challenge to deal with Do NOT see it: 1. if you like films where the plot moves quickly 2. if you are used to and like made-in-Hollywood romance movies 3. if you don't like reading subtitles (3 languages are spoken in the film)My rating is 9 out of 10
palmiro It's no coincidence that Kiarostami chose Italy as his filming location (apart from an unobjectionable desire to spend some time in Tuscany): It's another replay of the themes of Pirandello, and, in particular, the ones we find in Pirandello's plays such as "Six Characters in Search of an Author,", "Cosi' e'(se vi pare)" ("That's the way it is--if you think so"), and "Il giuoco delle parti" ("The 'Let's play a role' Game"). In all of these works we get a vision of life which suggests that life itself is just one big game of role-switching, with all that that suggests about the illusiveness of reality. Nothing is as it seems, and we begin to suspect that it's a fruitless endeavor to seek out that "true" or "authentic" self which undergirds all the "certified copies" in play throughout our lives. And just as in Pirandello's plays, so too with Kiarostami we get the dramatic denouement: What is initially playful repartee gradually takes on the look of a high-stakes game and eventually careens wildly out of control.
wandereramor What's really remarkable about Certified Copy is not that it's great, but that it appears to be great effortlessly. The story plays out like an extended tangent, the kind of unexpected lingering that makes up a real courtship, driven by well-observed dialogue and a smoothness of direction that carries you along without making you realize how much time goes by. The entire film is basically a conversation between Shimell and Binoche, and the two actors prove themselves more than capable of carrying a dialogue across ninety minutes without it ever becoming tiresome.The twist, of course, is that there are two parts of the film: one in which Shimell and Binoche are newly-acquainted and obviously infatuated with each other, and another in which they're a married couple who can't forget the kind of grudges built up over a decade. Neither of the two stories are really satisfying in themselves: the new lovers are devoid of conflict, and their tour through the countryside could be mistaken for a very well-shot tourist video, and the married couple are all sturm un drang, conflict bordering on melodrama, about pretty standard-issue problems. Together they make something really unique. Certified Copy poses us the question not just of which one of these narratives is true (if either is), but which one we want to be true, and whether or not the distinction of truth even matters. Conceptual brain-twister plot lines like this are usually done in garish sci-fi spectacles like Inception or eXistenZ, but Kiorastami manages to do it without ever breaking the quiet art-house aesthetic.This is definitely not a movie for everyone, and won't be a blockbuster anytime soon. Its slow pace and lack of exposition may grate at even reasonably seasoned cinephiles, and this can't entirely be excused with the justification of art. But at the same time it's a truly unique movie with an interesting perspective and a lot of charm. Everyone should at least give this one a chance.