Like Someone in Love (2013)

Recently, the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has embraced a talky and relaxed international style. His latest film, Like Someone in Love, set in Tokyo, is about a retired sociology professor, played with a soft chuckle by Tadashi Okuno (who spent most of his career as an extra); the college-student prostitute (Rin Takanashi) he hires for a night; and her explosively angry and deluded boyfriend (Ryo Kase). The professor is desperate to connect with this shallow escort as a human being. That's his tragedy, but the movie is playful and makes no easy moral judgments. (On VOD 2/21) B+