The Last Supper

Much like an old-fashioned woman's picture--the sort of florid melodrama that the studios used to churn out with depressing regularity, often based on books by mediocre novelists like Fannie Hurst--filmmaker Fereydoun Jeyrani's The Last Supper's main difference is that it focuses on the subservient place of women in contemporary Iranian society. The heroine, Mihan Mashreghi (Katayoun Riahi), is a middle-aged professor of architecture trapped in a loveless marriage to a brutal spouse, a bank manager threatened by her professional success and independence. In the film's central love triangle, Mihan becomes the object of a handsome student's infatuation, but the young man is also fancied by Mihan's daughter, Setareh. After a bitter divorce, Mihan's ex-husband tries to blacken her reputation with university authorities, while her relationship with the student poisons feelings between her and her daughter, all leading to an inevitably tragic outcome. A tale of female self-sacrifice that is every bit as hokey as Stella Dallas (with a musical score that's equally heavy-handed), The Last Supper--although some might want to endow it with deeper social overtones--is basically the same old tearjerker in a more exotic locale. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)