I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This movie stands up to the greatest ones in movie history. It shows to the best what movie language is - a movie is made to be seen by you, the spectator, and the author gives you what he has in his mind, in a way that will seize your attention from beginning to end and, also, will please you, will make you think or even will make you feel uncomfortable. Light, sound, movement, all this is substance for creation. Everything, from the reflections of the old town's buildings on the car's windshield to the irrational mixing up of languages (he doesn't speak Italian, but suddenly is is speaking Italian!), serves to the purpose of building up a piece of fine art while telling a story - and what a story! She plays a joke on the old lady (an excellent actress) in the cafeteria but soon she and his recently-made friend are playing the same joke on themselves and they no longer know that they are half-strangers, they believe they have been married since long! He (un?)willingly becomes the "perfect copy" of her ex-husband and has to abide to his own theories that a copy will serve its purposes as well as the original. The movie will open a thousand new doors to your mind - if you agree to join the play!

I came across the film when researching a piece I was writing on Plato's ideas of beauty and aesthetics. Although Plato isn't for everyone I thought this film really helped my students understand some of his central concerns relating to the difference between an idea, a reality and an imitation. In our class discussions on Plato's notions of Mimesis and Diegesis, this film greatly helped. The film forces us to wonder to what extent the relationship between the two central characters is real, or an imitation of a once real relationship. It asks is a real relationship any better than a certified copy i.e a fake relationship where both parties pretend it is real. That is the central question - the value of the authentic versus the value of the fake.

In Tuscany, a French woman (Juliette Binoche) arrives in a lecture room to see the middle-aged British writer James Miller (William Shimell), who has published a book about the validity of copies versus original works. However, her son forces her to leave the lecture early and she gives her phone number to a common friend to give it to James.He comes to her antique shop and invites her to drive around. However, she takes James to the village of Lucignano. While they are traveling, he autographs six books she had bought and they discuss the subject of his book. When they arrive in the village, they are mistakenly taken as husband and wife and the woman decides to play the game and soon the bitter James Miller assumes the role of her husband.I am not a fan of Abbas Kiarostami, but I see his movies since they are usually challenging and open to interpretations. I have just seen "Copie Conforme" on DVD and I have my understanding of the story that may be or may be not the real intention of this Iranian writer / director.Juliette Binoche's character definitely knows James Miller and there are evidences: first, she has a reserved spot in his lecture; then her son comments that she had decided to fall in love with the British writer; last, when James arrives in her antique shop, they do not introduce themselves to each other and they are not too formal as strangers certainly would be. I believe that James Miller first met her years ago while she was walking on street with her son following her but never together. She probably would be a single mother with rejection to her son and on that occasion they might have become lovers or they had at least a love affair in the hotel that they visit in the end but James probably would be married.They travel to the romantic village of Lucignano and they have a long discussion about copies and originals art works. When the owner of the cafeteria believes that they are married, the French woman plays games with James Miller pretending that they have been married for fifteen years, probably because she might have wanted to be his wife in the past. In the end, there is a parallel with the central subject of the story, copies vs. originals, and the drama turns into a faithful copy of a romantic comedy with a long-term marriage. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil):"Cópia Fiel ("Faithful Copy")

after a theoretical conference about artistic reproduction, Certified Copy begins like normal romance; an encounter, maybe an attraction from Her (Her is an art gallerist), she invites the writer to see something she think pertains to his new book — a book about originals and copies. As they travel across the Tuscan countryside, they talk and the writer tries to impose a different conception of happiness. i followed their confrontation with pleasure and so i believed i was watching a relationship in its first stages.as the movie progresses, ideas about this couple change, a complicity arises between them. more and more it seems like they have a history. midway through the film, a waitress takes them for a couple. The gallerist does not correct her and it is at this moment that Certified Copy radically changes our perceptions; the pair seem to be playing along that suggestion. the ground began shifting very often while i was trying to make logic out of it; after exclusively conversing in English, now they shift between English and French alternately while strong sentiments steadily manifest. attempts made in vain to sort out the real and the fake, the original and the copy..for me, Certified Copy woks great as a metaphor for relationships in general; one gets to see successive illustrations of life as a couple: the first encounter and the attraction that builds upon, the first arguments and the blame game that follows, the sorrow and nostalgia.. it's clear that Kiarostami delivers a subtle symbolic representation of relationships and our perceptions through them, a film that i think deserves more viewings to detect more subtleties.my appreciation of the film increased a lot since i saw it 5 days ago. however, while i think it's great conceptually, it prevents the audience from fully engaging through constant tact; because it encourages us to seek a way to make sense of it all, it is misleading in that way. i also wasn't a big fan of Binoche's performance, it seemed very improvised and impulsive