If it takes well into a person’s twenties before fully absorbing the reality that one’s parents are actual people, with their own hopes and dreams, fears and pressure points, that comprehension, oddly enough, typically comes earlier in regards to teachers, when the veneer of stentorian authority is punctured — either by an instructor’s casual jocularity, some flaming screw-up or their serial challenge to previously unchallenged ideas and mores. Words and Pictures, scripted by Gerald Di Pego and directed by Fred Schepisi with an aplomb that belies its hyper-charged emotionality, centers on two such characters.

And in doing so, it offers a fairly rich, playful vehicle for Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche to parry and thrust, and maybe even fall in love. Fans of smart adult romantic comedies (this is easily the sort of picture one could imagine Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal starring in together about 20 or 25 years ago) with a pinch of screwball mojo will find reward in Words and Pictures, which reminds viewers that life doesn’t end at 40 years of age, or even 50. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (Roadside Attractions, PG-13, 116 minutes)