Circumstance (Sharayet - 2011)

This story of two rebellious teenagers in Iran won the Audience Award at Sundance, the same one that happythankyoumoreplease won last year, as well as being nominated for Best Picture and losing to Like Crazy. It is colorful, poignant, and sexy (the girls are more than best friends), but left Jack and me a bit puzzled about all the hoopla. The political parts, where the girls come in conflict with the fundamentalists in their community, was disturbing but didn't get to us that much. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. I'm pleased for director/writer/co-producer Maryam Keshavarz (a woman of Iranian descent born and educated in the U.S.) making her feature debut, and the girls Nikohl Boosheri and especially Sarah Kazemy are quite beautiful and this is their first time on screen. Like the Sundance jury and audiences, critics are loving this (82% critics/72% audiences on rottentomatoes). It closed here today and will be available as a DVD on netflix beginning December 13, so you can judge for yourself.