Synopsis

This movie sparkles occasionally, especially when the social group that the female lead belongs to are talking together in a restaurant, or at home, over a meal.

And the female lead herself is stunningly beautiful, like something that walked out of a Botticelli.



But the male lead, the father-in-law of the recently widowed female lead character is an unbelievable boogeyman.

His attitude is a monotonous, one-note, angry, overbearing glower, totally bestial and bloody-minded.

The whole film comes off as a childish act of revenge that will stop at nothing to smear and assassinate the character of the father-in-law.

The viewer might sympathize with the plight of the persecuted female lead if the movie didn't spend so much time beating the viewer over the head, telling us to hate and loathe the father-in-law.

The main action of the film involves a not-particularly-believable chase. The father-in-law chases his daughter-in-law and her two children because he wants exclusive custody of the children.

A running commentary is kept on the progress of the chase in the form of keeping a score. Both the female lead's friends and the father-in-law take this perspective.

But instead of treating this attitude as the inappropriate thing it is, the film legitimizes it and even plays it for laughs.

One of the worst things that can happen in a family is for the children to be fought over as objects, as things, to be possessed. It happens all too frequently in real life.

It's easy to get caught up in that game. The only mature and decent attitude to take is to deplore such a development. This movie fails to do so, and instead, it takes sides.

Besides being morally dubious, the pacing of this film was slow and herky-jerky.

The best part of the film were the shots of the Iranian countryside. But those could have been better presented in a neutral travel documentary.

Cast: Jamshid Hashempour, Seyd-Ali Hosseini, Shahab Hosseini, Niki Karimi, Gohar Kheirandish, Merila Zarei, Homayoun Ershadi, Ali  Hamidi, Seyd-Ali Hosseini, Ahoo Kheradmand, Afarin Obeisi (Afarin), Mohammad Reza Sharifinia, Ladan Tabatabaei