About Elly

Asghar Farha­di became a new name in the pan­theon of world cin­e­ma when his film, A Sep­a­ra­tion, qui­et­ly rose to promi­nence dur­ing the 2011 awards season.

That film’s inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion was as wel­come as it was sur­pris­ing, and one hap­py side effect of its suc­cess is the long over­due UK release of About Elly, the film Farha­di made imme­di­ate­ly before his break­through. It’s anoth­er com­plex, enthralling dra­ma that has been writ­ten and direct­ed with rare skill. It proves that A Sep­a­ra­tion was no fluke.

It’s a film about secrets and lies, although Farha­di takes his time to reveal the story’s true nature. The leisure­ly first half hour is played with a light touch as a group of sophis­ti­cat­ed young Ira­ni­ans embark on a beach­front hol­i­day, with Sepi­deh (an out­stand­ing Gol­shifteh Fara­hani) hav­ing an ulte­ri­or match­mak­ing motive for invit­ing her attrac­tive sin­gle friend Elly (Taraneh Ali­doosti) to join the party.

Farhadi’s inti­mate direc­tion allows us to enjoy their com­pa­ny and appre­ci­ate the nat­ur­al, charm­ing per­for­mances he elic­its from the ensem­ble. Our attach­ment to these char­ac­ters ensures that the impact is con­sid­er­able when the set-up is rup­tured with an auda­cious twist.

Of course, we will say no more about this devel­op­ment. It’s suf­fi­cient to reveal that Farha­di han­dles this nar­ra­tive volte-face with extra­or­di­nary deft­ness, instant­ly trans­form­ing a good-humoured tale into a tense mys­tery in which shift­ing group dynam­ics ensure the audi­ence remains off bal­ance. About Elly is extreme­ly per­cep­tive in its depic­tion of ordi­nary peo­ple under intense pres­sure: as they talk, these well-mean­ing char­ac­ters only suc­ceed in adding lay­ers of deceit to orig­i­nal lies.

It’s easy to see About Elly as a film crit­i­cis­ing the cul­ture of decep­tion in Iran­ian soci­ety, but Farha­di keeps such polit­i­cal com­men­tary as sub­text. First and fore­most, his film is a grip­ping human dra­ma, one that pos­es seri­ous moral ques­tions while chal­leng­ing our pre­con­cep­tions at every turn.