Movie Review: "About Elly"

"About Elly": A-.  When choosing whether to fork over the price of admission, most American movie goers are much more likely to pay greater attention to the stars of a given film than the film's director.  Only a handful of directors (e.g., Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers) have a devoted following large enough to make a box office difference on their names alone.  Add Asghar Farhadi, the esteemed Iranian director of About Elly, to that list.  When I learned that Farhadi's latest US release was playing in Uptown, I put it on my short must-see list.  This decision was based mostly on my thorough enjoyment of his last film to play a long run in Minnesota, A Separation (reviewed here February 25, 2012; A-).

Farhadi is brilliant at taking common everyday situations and turning them into suspenseful dramatic tales.  In A Separation, things go awry when a woman who's been hired to look after an elderly homebound man momentarily leaves her post.  In About Elly, a similar lapse of duty, this one involving children playing in or near the ocean, creates chaos.  The ensuing reaction of the film's characters, individually and collectively, is very real.  One can imagine himself saying the same things, asking the same questions and going through the same emotions as the people in the film.  There is nothing fabricated or dishonest about the script, and the actors are astonishingly convincing.  Panic, fabrications, scheming, white lies, moral questions, potentially misplaced honor; they all come into play as the plot thickens.  So do red herrings; what's up with the coughing women?

The setup for the tale is a weekend outing by a group of eight adults who have a connection to a law school in Iran's capital, Tehran.  Two of the couples are parents, and have brought along their three children.  When they arrive at their destination after a long drive from the city, they are advised that the villa they'd reserved is not available because its owner has unexpectedly returned and is using the place himself.  They are offered what is described as a less-desirable accommodation on the beach of the Caspian Sea.  Although this alternative building has not been cleaned and has no cell phone or internet connection, the group decides that staying there is preferable to canceling their plans altogether.  But as the manager leaves she cautions them, "Be sure to lock the door at night."

We quickly find out that three of the couples, including Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) and her husband, are married.  The fourth male, Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), is a newly divorced friend who is visiting from Germany.  The fourth female, Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), is the single kindergarten teacher of one of the kids and has been invited by Sepideh.  As the adults are cleaning up the place, there is a lot of playful banter, especially among the males who are prompting Ahmad to hit on Elly.  Elly is friendly, but on the bashful side.  She seems alone in her thoughts and sometimes strays from the group, heading into the kitchen or out on the front porch.  Whether she is receptive to the idea of hooking up with Ahmad is hard to gauge.

One of the many interesting aspects about this story is that the muslim religion influences the action.  The women are, for the most part, respected by the men, yet the difference in power between husbands and wives within the respective families is clear.  Also, when the group first arrives at the rental establishment, Sepideh tells the manager that Ahmad and Elly are newlyweds.  This lie is necessary because religion and culture would not tolerate two unmarried people of the opposite sex sharing living quarters.

The poster advertising this film is noteworthy for two reasons.  First, as a public service announcement, I will advise you that the character whose picture dominates the poster is not Elly; it is Sepideh.  I point this out because initially I had a hard time distinguishing between those two characters, and the fact that the poster featured a female other than the title character contributed to my confusion.  Eventually I identified them by the solid colors of their omnipresent scarves -- Elly reddish brown, Sepideh green.  That worked until the next day when those two women wore different color scarves.  I should have known, especially being married to Momma Cuan, that a woman would travel with more than one scarf!

Second, and more importantly, one of the two review quotes appearing on the poster reads, "The less you know in advance, the better."  I am going to heed that advice by film critic David Bordwell, and therefore it's up to you to check out how the story unfolds.  I highly recommend doing so.

As she was sucking down a delicious Insight Saison de Blanc at Libertine following the movie, Momma Cuan made a valid point which bears repeating.  She opined that when you watch a movie with talented but unfamiliar foreign actors, it is easier to forget that they are, in fact acting.  The only familiarity we have with them is that they are one with their corresponding characters.  As we like to say on ND Nation, "Agreeance."  The acting in About Elly is nothing less than phenomenal.