It’s not a good sign when you’re half an hour into the movie and are still unsure who the main character is or what’s going on. By the end, I had a pretty good idea, but to make sure (this was the winner of the Audience Award for Drama at Sundance), I checked out IMDB’s synopsis, which says, “A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager’s growing sexual rebellion and her brother’s dangerous obsession.”
Not quite satisfied, I then headed over to the film’s Facebook page, which conversely says that it’s, “the story of two vivacious young girls…discovering their burgeoning sexuality.” Finally, I looked up the film’s actual website, which stated that Circumstance “is a suspenseful tale of love and family upended by obsession and suspicion.”
Evidently, I’m not the only one who was more than a bit confused. Again, not a good sign.
None of them are flat-out wrong, and indeed the movie contains elements of all three—there’s Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) as the two 16-year-olds discovering their burgeoning sexuality; Atafeh’s brother Mehran (Reza Sixo Safai), the former addict who finds a new addiction in Islamic extremism; and their father Azar (Soheil Parsa), the liberal-minded man who disagrees with the old ways but nevertheless must adhere to them for his family’s safety.
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