Movie No. 80 (2013): ABOUT ELLY

About Elly (2009)
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Cast: Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti
In Farsi, with English subtitles

How human beings react to a situation is perfectly captured in this movie. This movie is one with most fluid script and editing I've seen on screen. This is definitely one of the best films I've seen in recent years. It's directed by the same person who gave us A Separation, winner of Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012. Both films (About Elly and A Separation) have a Alfred Hitchcock feel.

The film follows the weekend getaway in an old resort house facing the Caspian Sea of three middle class families from Tehran. They were college friends. Sepideh invites Elly, her daughter's kindergarten teacher, and a recently divorced college friend (Ahmad) who now lives in Germany, in an effort to match the two. Elly is determined to stay for overnight only because her mother is sick. The other persuade Elly to stay longer. But an accident changes everything that has been planned. The son of one of the families gets swept away by the rough sea, and Elly disappears. Believing that Elly is still in the water, having tried to save the boy, everyone panics. But there's no body found. The question: did Elly drown or leave for Tehran? Panic will unearth a lie - a lie that will open a Pandora's box that will result in a moral dilemma among those involved.

This is a quintessential example of ensemble acting. The camera work is austere, but is a hundred times more effective than fake and expensive visual effects. Everything in this film is near perfect.

Rating: 4.0/4.0

Date seen: April 9, 2013