In the first scene of The Persian Version, the third feature film by Iranian-American director Maryam Keshavarz, a young woman dressed in a niqab and a pink swimsuit rushes through New York City to go to a costume party. On the sidewalks or in the metro, she moves forward, indifferent to the questioning or hateful looks given to her by passers-by.
This duality is at the heart of the life of Leila (Layla Mohammadi), the heroine of the film, whose story is freely inspired by the filmmaker’s journey. Constantly torn between the culture of her parents and that of her native country, she tries to chart her path and live her truth, despite the pressures, judgments and anger that she provokes in her path.
In the eyes of her parents and her eight brothers, Leila multiplies the dishonors. Recently separated from her partner, Elena (Mia Foo), the young woman finds herself pregnant by accident after a one-night stand with Maximillian (Tom Byrne), an actor who insists on getting involved with the baby.
With this film with endearing characters, but which is sometimes sentimental and caricatured, Maryam Keshavarz won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival for the second time – her first feature film, the queer romance Circumstancesobtained it in 2011, in addition to earning him a ban from the Iranian authorities.
In the first part, oriented around Leila’s setbacks, the filmmaker does not always seem to know where to turn, multiplying figures of speech, references, abrupt jumps in time, and overusing the mixture of genres. In less than an hour, it draws on the codes of romantic comedy, musical comedy and teen film, in addition to borrowing from the strong narration of Martin Scorsese, the choral style of Richard Curtis and the breaking the fourth wall, a process popularized by Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the television series Fleabag.
This exalted tone is, however, reversed when the story chooses to focus on the character of Shireen (Niousha Noor), Leila’s mother, who hides beneath her appearance as a demanding and eternally dissatisfied matron a journey that has all the makings of an epic. Married at the dawn of adolescence, catapulted to America by a scandal, she raised her nine children at arm’s length, becoming one of the most successful real estate agents in New York in the process.
Maryam Keshavarz excels in these touching and sober scenes, while contrasting with the first, reflecting the abyss that exists between the experiences of first and second generation immigrants. By abandoning the superfluous, it makes digestible a reality that is often misunderstood and depicted with few nuances. Concerned with celebrating the truth and the right to self-determination of the women she portrays, the filmmaker refuses to make the value judgment required, wrongly, of artists in her position, and thus opens hearts and minds.