About Elly

Before he won the Academy Award for A Separation—the first Iranian film to take home an Oscar—Asghar Farhadi made 2009's About Elly, which serves up a fascinating mix of mystery and social drama. Set during a family seaside vacation with three close-knit couples and their young children, the film offers a portrait of modern Iranian culture that has been little seen on American screens. The couples are middle class urban professionals who bring along Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), a young single schoolteacher—ostensibly to watch their kids but in reality to meet a recently divorced friend visiting from Germany. All is easygoing fun and well-meaning romantic machinations until a child is pulled into the surf and almost drowned. The boy survives, but Elly, who was supposed to be watching the children, is gone. Did she drown or simply run away? This set-up recalls Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura, but the mystery here becomes a vehicle for social drama and sharp observations of friendships and marriages under pressure. As seemingly innocent secrets and lies are revealed, everything begins to appear suspect, especially when Elly's fiancé arrives looking for an explanation. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)