Autumn Sun

A Phoenix pick

Older people don't get much respect when it comes to romance on the big screen; more often they're treated with condescension, ridicule, or sentimentality. Argentinian director Eduardo Mignogna's wistful, deft, beautifully acted Autumn Sun succumbs to those weaknesses only in its generic title. Clara Goldstein (a birdlike and elegant Norma Aleandro) is a fiftysomething single woman in Buenos Aires who needs to find a Jewish fiancé to placate her visiting-from-Boston brother. She places a personals ad asking for a nice Jewish fellow and gets a response from Raúl (Leslie Nielsen look-alike Federico Luppi), who despite his clumsy efforts at passing is clearly a gentile. Clara decides to go with him anyway, coaching him in being Jewish to deceive her brother. The outcome is predictable, but filled with such canny details and small surprises, not to mention the subtle evocation of evolving love between Clara and Raúl, that the occasional misjudgment -- a perfunctory subplot involving a delinquent; Clara's penchant for bewildering fantasies -- is lost in the glow of genuine emotion. Screens at the Copley Place Thursday at 6:15, 8:15, and 10:15 p.m. and Friday at noon and 2 and 4 p.m.

-- Peter Keough

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