The Persian Version

Grade: C

Throughout The Persian Version, I could see a couple of really fresh, strong potential movies poking their heads out and trying to burst free – but alas, anything that might have been worthwhile is shot down before it can fly. It’s a movie that wants to have it all, and tries to do so much, but succeeds at so little. The cultural celebration is like Polite Society, with the large dysfunctional family dynamic of the Big Fat Greek franchise, and (this is what kills the movie) the kind of random non-sequitur cuts, narration, and fourth-wall breaking of an Adam McKay film. It’s a hot mess.

Two of the biggest plot points that are juggled take place in the present day. A wonderful Layla Mohammadi plays Leila, the daughter of Iranian-American immigrants and the only girl of nine children. Though she is gay, she gets pregnant by a one-night stand at a costume party with an off-Broadway actor currently starring in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (and dressed as Hedwig that night). We also follow the journey of Layla’s mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor). She is going into debt because of her large family and ailing husband’s medical bills, so she gets a real estate license in a hurry, and it’s not long until she’s killing it as a realtor. These are good people in good stories, but constantly undercut by the apparent The Big Short/Vice/Dumb Money music video type directing style. When Layla waits for her future daughter’s father outside the theatre, I kept hoping she’d go in so we could see some of the Hedwig musical. It would have been more enjoyable.

Midway through, we get a very extended flashback to Shireen’s roots, trials, and tribulations overseas. This sequence is played sincerely without frills or gimmicks, and has such sheer power (and an endearing, courageous performance by Kamand Shafieisabet as young Shireen), that it could have and maybe should have been its own movie. Director Maryam Keshavarz gives us this rich story to show us what she COULD do, then yanks it out from under us, when we return to the present day, and we’re back into the kind of mugging for the camera and cutting that Oliver Stone would have smartly left on the cutting room floor.

The ending arrives full circle with a birth that comes with a poignant narrative link, but by then, it’s too little too late. Keshavarz spends too much time not letting her movie breathe. The Persian Version is a growing flower that’s stomped on before it can bloom.

Grade: C