MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES:
Leila is an Iranian American woman who strives to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures. When her large family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant, she keeps everyone at arm’s length — until a secret is revealed.
REVIEW:
“I dreamed of being the Iranian Martin Scorsese,” confesses Leila (Layla Mohammadi), the lead character in “The Persian Version,” Maryam Keshavarz’s semi-autobiographical reverie about a rising Iranian American director and her tumultuous family life.
Sure, the disorienting time jumps, abrupt edits, the voice over narration shows Scoresese influence, but that’s maybe ten percent of the film. There’s also western homages, slapstick bits, Bollywood influenced dance numbers. One of the boyfriends even gives off a Hugh Grant in rom-com echo.
The Persian Version is an oddly personal film striving for a neutral impersonal aura. Somehow, the differing tonal arrangements and layering works. It gives the film and characters that division at the heart of the exile experience- the tug of war between the voice of the old homeland and the voice of their new country. The gags exists to be oddly disjointed, feel as awkward as the character feels. They can’t be anything but contrived and distracting, that is their permanent internal state.
Keshavarz’s script and direction reflects this herky-jerky stasis. These are memories in draft, waiting for the final revision that’s years away. The script is full of cheeky and self-conscious declarations. Breakups here take on political-historical connotations. The ending of the queer romance between the two main characters, Leila (the directorial stand-in Layla Mohammadi) and Elena (Mia Foo) is reflective of the acrimony between Iran and America at the end of the Shah’s rule. Also, reflective of this is her father, Ali (Bijan Daneshmand) who spends The Persian Version in a hospital awaiting a heart transplant. Her mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor) is deemed “hesrtlesss” by comparison.
When the film shifts focus from daughter to mother it becomes an examination and critique of the mother, a sympathetic portrayal for the hard choices exile imposes on the immigrant experience. It charts Shireen’s climb from uneducated immigrant child bride to real estate kingpin. The final part focuses on the reconciliation that comes when both mother and daughter share difficult pregnancy experiences.
The Persian Version is an ode to all the immigrant women fighting to live in their new country on their own terms. It gets a3.5/5 or a B+. It’s streaming on Netflix.
CREDITS:
Directed by
Written by
Maryam Keshavarz
Produced by
- Anne Carey
- Ben Howe
- Luca Borghese
- Maryam Keshavarz
- Peter Block
- Cory Neal
Starring
- Layla Mohammadi
- Niousha Noor
- Bijan Daneshmand
- Bella Warda
- Tom Byrne
Cinematography
André Jäger
Edited by
- Abolfazl Talooni
- JoAnne Yarrow
Music by
Production
companies
- Marakesh Films
- Archer Gray
- AgX
- A Bigger Boat
Distributed by
Release dates
- January 21, 2023(Sundance)
- October 20, 2023(United States)
Running time
107 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Languages
- English
- Persian
Leave a Reply