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Artificial and clumsily translated to boot

Giuseppe Tornatore’s (The Best Offer) latest English-language effort centers on a grad student/stuntwoman (Olga Kurylenko) whose love affair with a much older astrophysicist (Jeremy Irons) ends abruptly with his death. Or does it? She is subsequently bombarded with increasingly elaborate DVD recordings, letters and texts, meticulously delivered on schedule, from her clearly anal lover speaking from the grave, as it were. She doesn’t find this at all creepy. Artificiality infuses every scene of this undercooked, repetitive and clumsily translated mix of string theory and cornball sentiment. Japanese title: Aru Tenmongakusha no Koibumi. (116 min)