An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. I wonder what was the meaning of this beautiful title but you won’t get any answer after watching this flick. Anyway, even though the end-result was definitely half-baked, I still think it was a really strong story. Of course, there was the issue of casting Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek to play some Iranian characters, even though Hayek does have some Lebanese roots. Above all, beside this dubious casting, both actors didn’t deliver some strong performances here but they were not helped by the approach chosen with this material. Indeed, at some point, Isaac got arrested and it was as if the whole movie stood still for way too long after that. Basically, they gave us a seemingly endless back-and-forth between Isaac getting tortured and Farnez worrying about him and not much else. In fact, the most interesting thing was not the relationship between Isaac and his wife but between Farnez and Habibeh, her servant. Indeed, instead of showing the Iran revolution being led by some religious fanatics, they gave a different point of view showing that the social inequalities in this country also played a role. As a result, I was quite surprised that, according to this movie, the main motivation behind the Iranian revolution was actually maybe not religion but financial discrepancies between rich and poor in Iran. Unfortunately, this angle was never properly handled which really felt like a wasted opportunity. Instead, they kept hammering the fact that the Western Capitalist way of life is apparently the answer to all problems which is definitely not the case. Indeed, our way of life only seems to be the least of all evils and all alternative lifestyles are simply not tolerated. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in this subject.