Ambrosia

Leila (Sahar Biniaz, a former Miss Universe Canada) is a beautiful fashionista and, well, the wife of a pizza maker named Ali (Camyar Chai). A clash is inevitable, and it arrives when Leila is offered a plum job as a dress designer at one of the top houses. Ali has been trying to grow his business for a decade but is watching it head toward bankruptcy, while Leila—whose education in design Ali financially and emotionally supported—is on the ascendance. Leila does still hustle over to the pizza joint to help out every day after work, but the distance between them is clearly growing, and it is complicated by sexual attention toward Leila from her boss (Heather Doerksen). Writer-director Baharak Saeid Monir has delivered an interesting but also often tepid and synthetic-feeling film about the way that partners can be pulled apart by wildly different visions, agendas, and temptations. Oddly, the most interesting material here involves little moments that occur on the sides of the main conflict: a meal between co-workers at Ali's restaurant, or Ali sitting with an air of resignation inside a camper. A strong optional purchase. (T. Keogh)