When you sit down to watch a movie, the hope is always that it will resonate in some way, particularly when it’s a movie about a group to which you belong, and historically a group forgotten or excluded from most mainstream North American narratives. It’s rare for me to watch a movie and hear names that sound like mine, speaking a language I don’t hear often enough, or to hear music I recognize, see food I can only dream of making as well as my grandmother does, or witness a family and community dynamic so like the one I know in my own life. Such was the case for me with Maryam Keshavarz’s fantastically moving The Persian Version, which to all outward appearances looked to be a family comedy-drama, but instead wound up scraping me emotionally raw in a way I was not entirely prepared for.

The Persian Version follows Leila (Layla Mohammadi), the youngest of nine siblings, and the only daughter of Iranian immigrants Shireen (Niousha Noor) and Ali Reza (Bijan Daneshmand). Leila is a filmmaker, and if that weren’t enough of a source of tension among her family, she is also openly and proudly queer, which caused her to have a falling out with her mother, who cannot comprehend her daughter living so far “out of the box.” Things get even more complicated and strained for Leila when she gets pregnant following a one-night stand, and has to break the news to her family.

At its heart, more so than Leila’s creative identity as a filmmaker, or her identity as a queer woman, the film is about the relationship between mothers and daughters, Leila and Shireen in particular. Leila embarks on a quest to understand her mother better, and in the process uncovers the family “scandal” that prompted her parents’ move to America. A more conventional narrative would have seen Leila confront her mother directly about why she treats her differently than her brothers, why she couldn’t accept her queer identity, or her professional passions. A more conventional narrative would have seen Leila go it alone, write and make her film, and reconcile with her family that way. But this isn’t a conventional story. This is, if you will, the Persian version.

‘The Persian Version’ Builds a Deep Connection to Family
Image via Sony

The film eschews the traditional narrative structure, which would have primarily followed Leila — while perhaps touching on her mother and grandmother only in limited flashback — instead opting for something far more fluid that permits a deeper connection with the characters. The only fixed points in the film’s timeline are the Iranian Revolution and the year Leila’s family moves to the U.S., with the film opting instead to adopt a far vaguer approach to the timeline, with decades signified in clothing, music, geopolitics — all the same broad strokes by which we reflect on our own lives.

The same, too, can be said of the narration, and the way it unfolds. As the film begins, it is adult Leila who provides the context for the audience on everything. Through her adult, jaded, tired eyes we see her own youth as a child of two cultures, but we also get our first impressions of Shireen, Ali Reza, all her brothers, her grandmother Mamanjoon (Bella Warda), and even the tense history of Iran-America relations told in humorous vignettes. It’s only once she realizes she doesn’t know her mother as well as she thought, that she even opens herself up to the possibility of a narrative beyond the familiar. And it’s at this point that the narration shifts too, allowing a young Shireen (Kamand Shafieisabet) to tell her own story on her own terms.

In a cast as varied and talented as this, Shafieisabet is an absolute standout. She carries her scenes with a power and a sadness far beyond her years, putting a face and an age to the story too many of us are familiar with, of a beloved relative pulled out of school after barely hitting puberty to marry an older man and become a mother while still a child herself. By virtue of her presence alone, she illustrates the horror of what so many young girls of that generation endured, and the strength they showed in pushing past it and succeeding anyway in a world that considered any such achievements to be selfish.

The Messiness Is the Point in ‘The Persian Version’
Image via Sundance Institute

The Persian Version is not a tidy film. The quirks of the tangential narrative aside — the kind of tangent you find most in oral storytelling — most of the tension is not resolved by the end, but all that does is make the story feel true. Generational trauma is not resolved in a single conversation. Cycles don’t cease perpetuating after a single heartfelt hug. By the end, Leila and Shireen have a long way to go in healing their own hurt, but with a new literal and metaphorical ray of hope and want connecting them, you get the sense that maybe this time it’ll work after all.

A lot of my enjoyment of this film was derived from having such a personal connection to the story. When the wounds of generational trauma are opened and explored with such surgical precision, it’s hard to separate the self from the art, and in telling such a deeply personal story, Keshavarz never asks you to. But that’s not to say there isn’t a universality in The Persian Version’s specificity that invites audiences of all backgrounds — particularly those of some kind of diaspora — to find meaning and catharsis and humor in the events unfolding onscreen. The Persian Version isn’t quite the quirky family comedy the trailers make it out to be. It’s funny, but it’s also raw. It’s emotional and heartwarming in its truths. It will also leave you wanting to call your mother.

Rating: A-

The Big Picture

The Persian Version is a deeply moving film that explores the complex relationship between mothers and daughters, touching on cultural identity and generational trauma. The film breaks away from traditional narrative structure, adopting a more fluid approach that allows for a deeper connection with the characters and their stories. The Persian Version explores universal themes and emotions, inviting viewers to find meaning and catharsis in its raw and humorous portrayal of family dynamics.

The Persian Version opens in limited release on October 20 and in wide release on November 3. Click here for showtimes near you.