Sightlines · reception
How Like Someone in Love was received
2012 · Abbas Kiarostami · Like Someone in Love on Sightlines
The arc
Divisive at Cannes 2012 — plenty of critics left baffled, even annoyed, by that ending — but after Kiarostami's death in 2016 it was reappraised as his final narrative feature, and the enigma started reading like a fitting last word.
What’s debated
The debate is entirely about the ending: an audacious, perfect Kiarostami mic-drop, or the moment he simply stopped the movie on you.
Its footprint
Its cultural footprint is basically its final cut — one of the most argued-about endings of 2010s art cinema — plus the Ella Fitzgerald standard that gives the film its title drifting through it.
Where it stands
Cinephile shorthand for 'the last Kiarostami' — a swan song that's climbed from divisive curio to essential late-period work.
Did you know? Lead actor Tadashi Okuno had spent roughly half a century working as a film extra in Japan without ever getting a speaking part — Kiarostami cast the octogenarian in his first lead role.