Circumstance (2011)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Crappy film

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

First off....wow, all the Iranian expats posting reviews here seem to have an agenda and it seems like a number of reviewers are hating on this movie without having actually watched it (describing scenes that don't exist in the movie!) I thought this was a fascinating look at what goes on behind closed doors in Iran; not just the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the young people's underground club scene, but also the wealthy parents who drink wine and love to sing and dance. I think the only flaw is that the filmmaker is trying to tell too many stories of the affects of this brutal religious/political repression. There are a number of subplots and minor characters that aren't well developed, but the main story of the two young women who are in love and desperate for freedom is haunting and heartbreaking.

Atafeh has wealthy relatively liberal Iranian parents. She attends parties with her best friend orphan Shireen. They rebel and start a sexual affair. They join other kids to make an outlaw movie. Atafeh's older brother Mehran is a recovering drug addict. He's unemployed and finds support in a mosque. He becomes increasingly religious and installs surveillance cameras in the family home. He's obsessed with Shireen and pushes to marry her. Atafeh's father also faces religious pressure and starts to join his son.The first half isn't anything special. The lesbian affair doesn't feel real. The relationship feels manufactured. Mehran's turn is more compelling. It is sinister and scary. The last act has some good dark turns. I don't think it works completely but it has some good drama.

Don't get me wrong, some of my favourite films are foreign language films: I love Amour, City of God, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, and Letters From Iwo Jima. But the delivery of this film, even down to how the actors are speaking their lines is just dire.I would honestly prefer to watch an out-and-out gaudy, trashy lesbian film such as "And then Came Lola" or "It's in The Water" that at least is aware of how terrible it is than sit through another 100 minutes of this pretentious, inaccurate rubbish.I laud the intention, don't get me wrong. It's not every day you get a film based on the relationship between two Iranian lesbians. This film could have been amazing if it had just stuck to that point and developed their relationship as the primary focus of the film.But the film is drawn in so many directions, many of which are left incomplete. A group of friend talk about dubbing the film "Milk", later one of them is arrested as a spy (but we never find out the conclusion of either of these). The main male character Mehran starts the film smoking hard drugs, yet his father does a urine test on him that proves nothing?! One of the girls has no money for school at the start of the film, and this is never addressed again. These are just some of the examples... And to top it off, a large proportion of the acting is half-hearted and (from what I can see from Persian speakers reviewing the film) done by people who are not even fluent in the language. I didn't believe in the romance as there was no romance in how it was spoken, and the scenes were left underdeveloped.Also why are they preoccupied with going to Dubai?! I know it is probably less oppressive than Iran, but it isn't exactly a gay haven either!Go and watch a feel good, throw away, unapologetic gay film rather than wade through this. Trust me, I wish I had!

Movie is erratic, obscure and basically resemble a long video clip. Its plot hard to follow and characters are weekly developed, most plot twists are logically disconnected. So why is this debut feature movie got Sundance audience award, was reviewed by most prominent American newspapers and was shown in numerous American theaters? Difficulties of lesbian love in Iran is widely compelling, so it's pretty easy to speculate on the subject and arouse more public outrage against Islamic republic regime on the whole, which is exactly the present agenda. That's the only plausible explanation Even if the director as she stated made a movie about her youth and experience in Iran, it turned out to be a spot on for western anti-Iranian propaganda. This is the only reason the movie being noticed, awarded, discussed and promoted. So it's obvious that the subject of forbidden lesbian love is alluring and induces great empathy, and is truly sad. This movie, however, does not really focus on that, putting a side the fact, that girls are so far from real lesbians and are more of a man's dream of lesbians. Movie is exceptionally superficial and mostly focuses on the physical aspect of the girls relationship, bed scenes are shot in the music clip manner. Most part of the film girls go from one party to another and once even have to run away from the moral police (duh). Their 'fight' for human rights is represented, I assume, by their secretly doubling movie 'Milk' with two allegedly gay guys. Only the process of doubling an intercourse scene of Harvy Milk and his lover is shown though. The most meaningful dialog that took place among the characters on the human rights subject is one where they jokingly argue whether having sex with whoever you want is a an indivisible human right or not. The director, moreover, tried to make out of this scattered music clip a melodramatic thriller on top of all. Thus the older brother of Atefeh, Mehran, who is an ex heroin addict, and supposedly a talented pianist has been recently released from a rehab and became a righteous Muslim overnight. He calls moral police on his friend's grandiose party and apparently completely renounces his old life style. His new obsession is Shirin, who is from an impoverished family of university professors, supposedly killed for their anti-government actions. Mehran, who often sits in front of his computer turned out is spying on Shirin by installing hidden cameras all over the house. He is an extremely bad copy of William Baldwin's character in 'Silver'. He looks pathetic and comic trying to depict an obsessed psychopath. Finally he blackmails Shirin and makes her marry him, since he recorded her doubling 'milk' and can put her to jail. The funny thing is that he is more than Shirin could ever dream about - Her uncle has been pushing her to get married for quite a while and another beau was much worse of a deal anyway. Film ends by Shrirn kissing her husband goodbye, who all of a sudden became an ambitious businessman and is going to work in his Mercedes. Atefeh bribes a travel agent with her daddy's money and gets a visa and a ticket to Dubai, where she thinks 'everything is possible'. The whole film is so absurd and out of place, and characters are so weakly developed, that its dramatic part is just sort of comic in a bad way. Apart from all its nonsense script, awful editing, unconvincing performance, the movie does not even appeal to an average Tehranian because It is entirely detached from reality.