Shayda review – a moving, necessary picture | Little White Lies

Shay­da review – a mov­ing, nec­es­sary picture

17 Jul 2024 / Released: 17 Jul 2024

A woman and a young girl sitting close together, looking at each other intently.
A woman and a young girl sitting close together, looking at each other intently.
3

Anticipation.

Well received at Sundance and Australia's entry for Best International Feature Film is all promising for the Iranian director.

4

Enjoyment.

Raw and captivating.

4

In Retrospect.

Niasari donates moments from her own life to produce a moving, necessary picture.

Noo­ra Niasar­i’s ten­der dra­ma fol­lows a moth­er and her six-year-old daugh­ter who take shel­ter at a wom­en’s refuge after flee­ing an abu­sive marriage.

Based on the direc­tor Noo­ra Niasari’s own child­hood, Shay­da fol­lows the epony­mous pro­tag­o­nist, a young Iran­ian moth­er (Zahra Amir Ebrahi­mi) and her six year old daugh­ter Mona (Seli­na Zahed­nia), as they flee from an abu­sive hus­band and father Hos­sein (Osamah Sami), tak­ing refuge in a women’s shel­ter in Australia.

It’s a har­row­ing and pow­er­ful film that nav­i­gates the intri­cate ter­rain of going against tra­di­tion and long­ing for free­dom, one that aims to extend the per­son­al con­fines of cul­tur­al con­flict beyond the fic­tion­al char­ac­ters it portrays.

The film’s the­sis explores, in part, the strug­gles when try­ing to pre­serve tra­di­tion­al val­ues but long­ing for the type of free­dom that can slow­ly but sure­ly break fam­i­lies apart. There’s a scene ear­ly on depict­ing Shayda’s moth­er try­ing to jus­ti­fy Hossein’s abuse over the phone – At least he’s a good father!” is a typ­i­cal exam­ple of the efforts to uphold cus­tom­ary norms like that syn­ony­mous with a mar­ried cou­ple. Lat­er at a par­ty, Shay­da is fur­ther belit­tled by friends who attempt to sweep this sys­temic misog­y­ny under the rug – anoth­er con­tri­bu­tion to the oppres­sive and arguably misog­y­nis­tic sys­tem that we see the pro­tag­o­nist try so hard to escape from.

The film is sim­ple and direct, a qual­i­ty that feels apt for the obvi­ous­ly dis­mal sub­ject mat­ter. Yet the per­spec­tives do become dis­joint­ed at times, with a fre­quent messy switch between fic­tion and doc­u­men­tary style sto­ry­telling – the use of hand­held cam­eras and nat­ur­al light, paired with ref­er­ences to cus­tody hear­ings and graph­ic abuse details writ­ten in Aus­tralian court doc­u­ments all con­tribute to the shift to real­ism seen on screen. While at times the change seems gra­tu­itous, it does bring a nec­es­sary ele­ment of truth to Shay­da, result­ing in a film that approach­es the stark authen­tic­i­ty of a docu­d­ra­ma. This is a large part of what makes the film so affect­ing – the dra­mat­ic change mir­rors the sim­i­lar real life sit­u­a­tions many peo­ple find them­selves in. It gives authen­tic­i­ty and truth to the story.

The emo­tion present in the per­for­mances from Ebrahi­mi and Zahed­nia also con­tributes to the tone and depth it needs. The chem­istry between the two leads is pal­pa­ble, and the com­pas­sion felt for the char­ac­ters by the end is what makes the film so poignant. Ebra­ha­mi brings a vul­ner­a­ble dig­ni­ty to her char­ac­ter, and through Niasari’s still, silent shots we get a sense of the lin­ger­ing trau­ma evoca­tive of her per­for­mance. Through an inno­cent and uncom­pli­cat­ed night­mare in a time of dan­ger and fear, we are also shown that same des­per­ate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in six year old Mona, induc­ing a sure sense of injus­tice and help­less­ness as the sto­ry unfolds.

While the themes cov­ered aren’t uncom­mon to see in films nowa­days, it is the director’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence that ulti­mate­ly allows for a thought­ful impact on audi­ences long past the final scene.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, week­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.