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Reviews
The Persian Version (2023)
Heartwarming comedy on the Iranian immigrant experience
A heartwarming film that showcases the resilience of immigrant mothers and the seeming double life that their children --ie. Second generation immigrants-- typically experience. Shireen, mother to 9 kids, is an Iranian woman turned ultra-successful real estate agent in Brooklyn, NY who has to become the primary breadwinner after her husband's heart attack renders him unable to practice as a doctor. While the story primarily revolves around Leila, Shireen's daugther who is a lesbian writer and film director recovering from a break-up with her longtime girlfriend Elena, Shireen also has a vital role in helping shape Leila's self-actualization journey. I enjoyed the flashbacks in the movie that described Shireen's young adulthood and her life in Iran's villages. While I don't think the depiction was very accurate (Iranian villages in 1960's and 70's were much more religious than the movie showed; hijabs were much more conservatively worn; people's emotions were more muted and restrained) I still liked that historical element and insight into Iranian rural life.
I also liked that the movie tried to incorporate some parts of Islam into its language (ex. The references to Imam Zaman, covering your legs with sweatpants instead of shorts after a basketball game to be more modest as a girl, the mention of usury when Shireen is trying to pay her husband's hospital bill by selling his office with steep profits, etc.). Shia Islam is such a central characteristic of Iranian culture that I'm glad it was mentioned -- although again, I feel like the historical flashbacks could've been prime opportunity to delve deeper into this and show how religiosity --and religious mysticism-- is such a key element of Iranian life that it seeps into daily language and poetry as well. This is something that often gets missed in how the media and news depict Iran that I was aching for this movie to fill in that hole -- but sadly, it didn't.
Most parts of the dancing were incredibly whitewashed. Iranians do not dance in choreographed fashion. Only some parts of Shireen's dancing at the wedding scene in the end were accurate depictions of Persian dancing.