Darbareye Elly (Asghar Farhadi, 2009)

Farhadi's precursor to his 2011 Foreign Language Oscar winner A Separation, About Elly follows a group of friends on a weekend away at the seaside. The organiser of the trip is set on match-making between her daughter's teacher, who is not known to the rest of the group, and a male friend who has returned from Germany. At first, the weekend seemingly proceeds in good spirits, but then a calamitous event forces secrets to the surface.

About Elly demonstrates a technique that Farhadi refined in A Separation, namely that of the slow reveal, with deliberate jarring leaps in the action. It forces us to speculate on what has transpired at no faster a rate than the characters and thereby involves us more cohesively in the events. This is a real asset, so it's a pity that on this occasion some of the script could have done with tightening up: the entourage start digging themselves deeper and deeper into a hole by trying to cover up the unpalatable truth with ever more short-sighted lies, with a lack of sense which is unbecomingly Fawltyesque for a serious drama. 

Still, you can see what Farhadi is trying to say about the conflicts within Iranian society, and at times you really do get under the skin of a culture hard to pin down, which is a deft feat.

6/10