There’s a lot to learn about authentic Iranian society in masterful writer-director Saeed Roustaee’s films, which have been astonishingly outspoken in detailing the underbelly of the country, from its soaring number of opium addicts to the state of abject poverty to which many middle-class households have been reduced by the West’s economic sanctions. Woman and Child, the second Iranian film to bow in Cannes competition this year after Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, is both socially and artistically toned down compared to its remarkable predecessors, and its playbook of women bickering over men and wayward kids looks awfully familiar. Though the acting and staging are of the highest quality, it has to be said that the excitement just isn’t the same.
Roustaee’s films found crossover potential to international film festival audiences after the heart-stopping cops vs. opium dealers thriller Just 6.5 (aka Law of Tehran) opened in Venice in 2019 and the exquisitely paced and acted social drama Leila’s Brothers made it to competition in Cannes in 2022, where it won a Fipresci award.
Then in 2023, the director found himself sentenced to six months in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. The charge was sending Leila’s Brothers to Cannes and thereby participating in “propaganda against the Islamic system.” The sentence included completing a course on “creating movies aligned with national interests and national morality”.
Surely Woman and Child, an intricate Iranian family story that shows people at their worst and most vengeful, must still be considered something of a critical outsider at home, though hopefully it will not be banned nationally as the rowdy and despairing Leila’s Brothers was. It begins with Mahnaz (Parinaz Izadyar), a pretty and vivacious nurse at a big city hospital who has been left with two kids to raise after her husband died. Now, at 40, she would like to remarry and the choice falls on an amusingly jolly but unfaithful ambulance driver, Hamid (another Roustaee regular, Payman Maadi). A two-day “marriage proposal ceremony” is coming up with Hamid’s parents visiting, but Mahnaz has not told her kids yet (“I’m waiting for the right moment”), nor are Hamid’s folks aware that she has children, so the web of lies begins to grow into a classic Iranian drama.
Another energetic character is her 14-year-old son Aliyar (newcomer Sinan Mohebi, excellent), who runs over rooftops like a cat, cutting his classes to hold improv clandestine betting sessions at a nearby vocational school. Added to his wisecracks in class and general misbehavior, it prompts the principal, Mr. Samkhanian, to expel him over Mahnaz’s pleas for “one more chance”.
Home life is never calm with the nervously aggressive wild child around. Yet it is a bright and loving family. A running joke is that Aliyar is paid by his wily granny to do her adult education homework, but he subcontracts it, along with his own, to his 8-year-old sister Neda (Arshida Dorostkar). In any case Aliyar is smart but dangerous and completely out of control. The music and dark colors communicate a strong sense of foreboding that suggests something dire is going to happen soon.
Tragedy strikes while Aliyar and his sister are staying at their paternal grandfather’s apartment on the weekend their mother is getting secretly engaged. Hassan Pourshirazi is another striking actor who turns the grandfather into a sick but menacing figure, one who will play a key role in the early disappearance of Aliyar from the film.
More trouble is piled on: Mahnaz’s marriage to Hamid is called off for the most galling of reasons, involving her younger sister Mehri (Soha Niasti). While the family gradually adapts to the new reality, Mahnaz is devastated and inconsolable, unable to work and popping handfuls of pills to stem the grief. A terror to her family, she is particularly unfair to little Neda, who is said to have white hairs at eight, which she plucks so as not to distress her mother.
At this point the film becomes full-on melodrama as Mahnaz disintegrates before our eyes from a self-confident professional woman to a wild-eyed, inconsolable fury hell-bent on getting revenge for what has happened. In her attempt to blame and punish anyone and everyone (but herself), she is both pitiable and to be feared as she turns into a raging Medea. For those who like their stories heavily spiced and their acting shrill and stage-worthy, the second half of Woman and Child should fill the bill.
Director, screenplay: Saeed Roustaee
Cast: Parinaz Izadyar, Soha Niasti, Fereshteh Sadr Orafaee, Sinan Mohebi, Payman Maadi, Maziar Seyedi, Hassan Pourshirazi, Arshida Dorostkar
Producers: Eva Dottelonde, Livia van der Staay
Cinematography: Adib Sobhani
Editing: Bahram Dehghani
Music: Ramin Kousha
Sound: Rashid Daneshmand
Production companies: Boshra Film (Iran), Iris Film (Iran) in association with Goodfellas (France)
World Sales: Goodfellas
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In Farsi
131 minutes
