User Reviews

With Chaharshanbe-Soori (Fireworks Wednesday) and now Darbareye Elly (About Elly), Asghar Farhadi has shot right to the top and joined an elite club of Iranian film makers, such as Kiarostami, Majidi and Mehrjui, whose films are appreciated worldwide. Farhadi's films are truly world class and full of nuances and deft touches not usually found in Iranian movies.

About Elly starts deceptively simple. A group of married couples, some with children, have come to a seaside town for a short break. The only single people in the group are Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini) who has recently separated from his German wife and Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti) who is a nursery teacher to Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani)'s child. Sepideh has organized the whole trip, as well as playing matchmaker to Ahmad and Elly.

The film really takes off when, in an apparent attempt to rescue one of the children from drowning, Elly disappears. Was she drowned? Did she just leave because she was embarrassed by the group's snide remarks about her and Ahmad? There are echoes of Antonioni's L'Aventura here but there is a big difference between the two films. Wheras in L'Aventura the missing girl quickly became forgotten by the group, here Elly becomes center of attention. The group realize how little they knew her; they don't even know her full name (Elly is a shortened version of several names). The questions keep surfacing: who was Elly and why did she agree to accompany a group of relative strangers for a few days in another town? (something highly uncommon for a single girl in Iran). About Elly is a worthy follow up to Farhadi's Chaharshanbe-Soori (Fireworks Wednesday). Again, as in that movie, Farhadi examines the consequences of lies and deceptions. He shows that even mundane lies of convenience, if piled on top of one another, can lead to unforeseen events. In addition to his insightful scripts, Farhadi clearly has an ability to draw top notch, and often career best, performances from his cast. All the actors here are superb but special mention must go to Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini and Saber Abar. Like Chaharshanbe-Soori, About Elly demands and repays several viewings.

This movie seemed to have a lot of promise early on showing the everyday lives of a group of Iranians friend on a weekend holiday on the Caspian Sea. This is not something seen often in movies so it was a welcome change. The acting, cinematography and music all were first rate. The early scenes with Elly were all understated and her uneasiness with the group hinted that something was not quite right.

The scenes leading up to and including the climatic near-drowning scene were well scripted and choreographed.

But after that, the film went downhill fast. There could have been a satisfying film just based on the aftermath of the tragedy and the revelation of Elly's full story and the consequences of forced marriage, the idea of an individual's right to choose etc.

But instead the story went into an almost comedy of errors based on the lies which had been told, and continued to be told throughout the remainder of the film.

I personally have a rule which I call the "Three's Company" rule, whereby it's hard to feel any sympathy or any type of strong bond with the characters if the only reason they're in the predicament they find themselves is because of their own poor decisions.

This, unfortunately, is such a case with this film. The lies that Sepideh told to get Elly there in the first place along with her being less than truthful about the accomodations were bad enough (and GolshiftehFarahani as Sepideh did a fanastic job expressing her guilt over the incident), but the casual lies that the group told Elly's family and fiance, for no real good reason were just unforgiveable, and made the situation worse than it otherwise was.

I don't know if that is supposed to be a comment on Iranian culture where people lie constantly to each other, both between husband and wife, between friends and to strangers, on such a constant basis, to the point that they need to teach their children to lie, but if so it's a terrible commentary on Iranian society.

This aspect marreed what was up to that point a promising film.

A group of middle class Iranian friends head to the beach for the weekend. Invited along is Elly (Taraneh Alidooshi), the nursery school teacher of one of the young children. But the relaxed spirits and fun filled atmosphere soon take a turn when one of the children nearly drowns and Elly goes missing. The families turns on themselves as blame and recriminations fly. And then Elly's fiancé turns up demanding answers. Much of the film's dialogue seems improvised, which gives it an unforced and natural feel. Banned in Iran, this is a deceptively simple enough film on the surface. But like most films emerging from Iran, About Elly contains a wonderful subtext that explores the divisive nature and repressive political structure of contemporary Iran, and the film is especially critical of its social strictures that deny women rights and an opportunity to have a say in their own lives. Director Asghar Farhadi's use of hand held cameras brings a sense of urgency and tension to key scenes. The ending is nicely ambiguous, leaving audiences to make up their own minds as to Elly's fate.

"A Bitter End is better than No Ending Bitterness".

I saw "About Elly…" last night in Fajr Film Festival, and WOW! In first look, the film is a simple family adventure, three Iranian families go to trip and everything seems perfect that accidentally becomes a sad drama. It begins with a simple lie and then by missing Elly, hiding truth ruins everything: morality, humanity, loyalty and suddenly you ask yourself: "What do they think about Elly, Really?"

Storytelling is simple but professional and the cast are great, especially Golshigteh Farahani(Sepideh) shows that she is one of the most talented Iranian actresses.

And all, I highly recommend it for who likes to see a modern "L' Avventura" and modern "Antonioni".

The most remarkable thing about this Berlin Silver Bear directing (Asghar Farhadi) winner is that despite all the suspense and tension, what it is about is so ordinary daily life that it could easily happen to anybody, anywhere. What is gripping is the way the story is told through a volatile camera and how the underlying human characters and emotions are explored.

The follow recap of events up to the first 45 minutes of this 2-hour film is technically not a spoiler, as I wouldn't even reveal details of the major incident that is the crucial turning point. And yet, it is a spoiler in the sense that some of the background only come out in the second half of the film, simply through dialogue of the character, that is, no convoluted flash back or time scramble which apparently still hasn't gone out of fashion in Hollywood.

11 people (4 man, 4 women, 3 kids) from Tehran drives to a seaside (the Caspian) resort for a 3-day holiday. There is however a hidden agenda. Seven of the adults are close friends – 2 couple, brother-and-sister pair and a single guy Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini) who just got divorced. The wife of one of the couples, Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani), invites a pretty young woman along in the last minute, a match-making gambit for the divorced friend. Elly (Taraneh Alidousti) the attractive outsider is Sepideh's kid's teacher at the nursery school. It turns out that Sepideh doesn't even know her last name. What Sepideh does know though, is that Elly is engaged, but willing to come along because she is trying to get out of the relationship with her fiancé (Saber Abar). This Sepideh hides from everybody. In the first 45 minutes, the audience follows with mild interest the progress of this modern, middle-class group's seaside vacation and gets to gradually recognize some of the character, obvious starting with Elly and Ahmad. But something happens, switching the tone of the film quite abruptly, and the audience follows the film with gripping attention to the end.

I must re-emphasize that there is no convoluted plots, credibility-stretching events and the likes of such that flood Hollywood movies. Everything that happens, as well as the people's reaction, is something that you and I can relate easily to our ordinary experience. The power of the film is derived from the way in which some of the facts unfold, to the audience as well as to the characters in the film. This is drama, suspense and tension in real life.

The acting is excellent although the cast is unknown, with the exception of Golshifteh Farahani who acted opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in "Body of lies" (2008) as the charming nurse his characters falls in love with. The Iran depicted in this film is modern – except for the headscarf, the women are no different from what you'll find in any big city in the Western society. People's emotions and reaction to event and situations are quite universal. The human nature probed in this film, therefore, can be easily empathized with.

Yet another masterpiece delivered by Asghar Farhadi of 'A separation' fame. This movie depicts a simple, Orthodox, shy Iranian girl Elly being called out to spend 3 days of nice vacation time with a bunch of lucky go happy friends from Tehran. Sepideh(who knows attractive Elly from being teacher to her daughter) knows she already is being engaged since 2 years but Elly tells she is about to break up with her fiance, so Sepideh intends to play her matchmaker with Germany returned friend Ahmad. Sepideh is as common at lying frequently as any normal person which is shown how she with held the fact that room wasn't available for 3 complete days but she still felt it could be manageable somehow on arrival.

During her first night stay with the group Elly learns how it feels to be in a much progressive middle class elite group away for some time though from her simple, cultured, conservative social situation which awaits her soon after departure from this temporary joy. She is not used to feel-free attitude her new found group of friends are accustomed to or how they make offensive jokes at each other lightheartedly. Through eyes of surprised freedom which other people can afford she simply walks out evidently giving glimpses of dissatisfaction she has in her own life and curtailed expression of joy or heartache she got within.

When she gets lonely time in car with her potential match Ahmad during grocery run. Ahmad says how his German wife left him with movie defining statement 'A bitter end is much better than a bitterness without ending'.

Elly's life is accurately same as the line. She is stuck between a conservative and oppressive system involving her mother and fiance on one end and joyful progressive elite class friends whose closeness reflects her own misery and pushes her towards breaking the shackles. But she just simply can't denounce the present and hug the desired future as intended. Her life and the system doesn't allow her that comfort.Choice is only a luxury of a few social elites which she can't afford.

While left to look after kids she is asked to fix the kite by little girl.While playing with the kite she forgets her complicated hopeless life for a moment and learns to live at present with free willed joy filling her heart out of the agony all around. She does denounce the bitterness of unending life by succumbing to a bitter end on her own. Finally she lived a moment of carefree life she longed all life like a little girl. She didn't had choice to live but die on her own terms.

Around her suspected disappearance grows many lies.Each lie to cover up their own moral shortcomings. All the facades of the so called progressive friends fall short with passing minute and growing nervousness. Honour, truth, social stance, cliched orthodoxy, social status suddenly becomes top priority over progressive humanity. Each character tries manipulation to justify their innocent role in the outcome for self consolation. Suddenly other then themselves others action around Elly is questioned and marked offensive. Ultimately Elly's character, her cleverly manipulated lies to her mother, fiance, the bunch of friends comes under scanner just to hold her the antagonist. And freeing themselves, society and status out as not guilty conveniently.

These series of miscalculated unnecessary manipulations of a simple situation leads them nowhere towards solving the mystery and finally when her body is found everything falls in place. All their complicated overthinking of a simple girl's life put under question who just wanted freedom from patriarchal Iranian society which made her oppressed and doesn't allow to have what she truly desires and live with joy like rest according to her own choices.

It's a profound analysis on human nature and how all moral standards are broken under circumstances. Facade of progressive mentality only remains until we can afford it. Not everything is complicated at the face value. Human life is ruled by simply situations which gets sometimes overwhelmed even among the best of us.

2010:

Reading a leaflet from a local art house cinema,I was disappointed to find that I had just missed a screening of an Iran New Wave (INW) Thriller. Looking for the movie on DVD,the only result that turned up was one without English subtitles.

2016:

Finally getting the chance to see Asghar Farhadi's work in the haunting Drama The Past,I was thrilled to discover that the BBC were to show one of his earlier works,which led to me getting set to at last meet Elly.

The plot:

Going on a three day holiday,school friends/ couples Sepideh,Amir, Shohreh, Peyman, Nazy and Nazy's husband Manuchehr decide to take their children along on the trip. Aware that the recently divorced Ahmad if flying in from Germany to join them on the break, Sepideh pushes her daughters kindergarten teacher Elly to join them,in the hope that she will woo Ahmad. Arriving at the beach villa,the gang find the place to have no phone reception and to be in the middle of nowhere. Wanting to keep things secret,Elly travels to town and calls her mum to lie about what's taking place.Fearful that Elly could run off early, Sepideh hides her bags. Wanting to spend some time on their own,the gang ask Elly to look after the kids on the beach.Relaxing,the gang is shaken by the scream of a child floating away on the sea,and the discovery that Elly has disappeared into thin air.

View on the film:

Keeping what awaits them at bay,co-writer/(along with Azad Jafarian) directing auteur Asghar Farhadi & cinematographer Hossein Jafarian give the opening 45 minutes a laid-back attitude,where the camera drifts along to snippets of casual dialogue.Riding the waves of dread with INW tracking shots cracking over the ocean, Farhadi breaks the calm with an atmosphere running on high anxiety,as stylish camera moves sweep the ocean for any sight of Elly. Making a sandcastle for his major visual themes, Farhadi lays the villa bare,subtly matching the bare soul of each guest,caught in draining close-ups and clipped dialogue out of earshot, capturing the emotional,darkly thrilling waves.

Initially looking like a nice holiday to the beach, the screenplay by Farhadi and Jafarian chips away at the calm and taps into the pure Noir terror,brilliantly bringing the fracturing state of each relationship to the surface. Finding no sign of Elly on the sea,the writers' strike a chilling mood with an expert deconstruction of Elly's disappearance leading to powerfully raw questions on treating words with a minimal value and the drastic measures people will take to keep a lie in place.

Twisting Elly's arm to come along, Golshifteh Farahani gives a divesting performance as Sepideh,whose face is drawn by Farahani in lines of disperse,and a desperation to grasp any sign of hope. Flying in from Germany, Shahab Hosseini gives a magnificent performance as Ahmad,by Hosseini keeping the lingering sting from Ahmad's divorce very real,in a film about Elly.

Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) has invited her friend Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti) to join her friends and family on a three-day vacation. One in which she planned to try to match Elly with Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini) since he is recently separated and saw them as a good match. However, during one day at the beach, everything goes wrong. Thus leading to Sepideh having to reveal more about Elly than she cares to, and her being forced to take responsibility for the lies and actions she hid from the group.

Praise

As I find myself increasingly watching more and more foreign language movies, I find myself seeing more similarities to English counterparts. However, with About Elly, there is a spin here dealing with the fact the cast is Muslim and it brings certain cultural specific thoughts, issues, and circumstances. All of which make this slightly more interesting than if it was another English American movie, but only but so far.

Criticism

When it comes to issues with this film, honestly it maybe more so me, in terms of what I like as a movie goer than the film itself. For, as can be seen in many a criticism, once a film goes over an hour and a half, 9/10 I will note the film overstayed its welcome. An issue which undoubtedly is in About Elly since it lacks any sort of intriguing drama at all. For even as Sepideh reveals her and Elly's secrets, and we meet someone from Elly's life, there remains this complacent tone which makes you feel sleepy and drowsy.

Something which isn't helped by how difficult it is to uniquely identify most of the characters. For while the men can be slightly identified by their hair grooming, and some by their weak story lines, the women largely are ghostly figures. Which isn't to say they don't have a place in the film, for Sepideh and Elly are the two main figures, outside of Ahmad, but unless you take notes I'd say it may take longer than it should to know who is who of the cast.

Overall: Skip It

Is there anything seriously wrong with this film? No. However, there isn't much done with this film to really constitute you investing 2 hours of your time, and the price, to see it. For while the acting is decent, and the story is OK, this really has no selling point besides it having a Muslim cast. Take that away and you have your usual melodrama which doesn't really take advantage of the many avenues it could, and it just leaves you drained and kicking yourself for wasting your time. Hence the Skip it label for while it seemed like it could have been interesting, I finished the film sorely disappointed.

maybe it was funny but the movie "Darbareye Elly" or "About Elly..." is the most different arty film you ever seen from Iran. i mean comparing to Abbas Kiarostami, Majidi & others' films. I love Farhadi's works from "Dancing in the dust" and "The beautiful City" TV serial to "Firework Wednesday" movie and now at the top of this social genre he is with "About Elly..." I recommend this movie to everyone... please... please watch it!

But about the film: the whole view of the film is different from other Persian movies... in this film Iran is a modern country with modern people and modern problems but there is a bigger problem that is very old and it is the LIE... whole parts of the story makes you to follow it or maybe I would say it makes you to be in the story...

3 middle-class Persian families with their friend AHMAD (acting by Shahab Hosseini), that is newly divorced from his German wife and came back to Iran, travel to the shores of the Caspian Sea on a three-day vacation. Three couples include Sepideh and her husband Amir who have a little daughter. Shohreh and her husband Peyman who have two children including their little son Arash. Nazi and her husband Manoochehr are the third family. And Ahmad is Nazi's brother. But there is another person with them. The kindergarten teacher of Sepideh's daughter. Her name is ELLY. 'Elly' is our and their all information about her. Sepideh brought her to introduce her with Ahmad but didn't say to Elly that he is a widower of a German wife. (1st Lie)

Sepideh (acting by Golshifteh Farahani that is known in the west by acting in the movie "Body of Lies") in this movie is the statue of telling Lie. She didn't even told to 3 family that Elly is coming with them, even to her husband!!. (2nd Lie) They want to take the villa that Sepideh has booked from Tehran but the owner going to come tomorrow and they just can stay for one day, not three days. But the people said that they booked it and the 3rd lie of Sepideh was that, to bring everyone specially Elly and Ahmad together. after a while they went to a seaside villa but although Shohreh wasn't agree because of her son, Arash, she didn't say anything. After a day Ahmad and Elly fell in love and want to marry but Elly should go back home because of her mother but Sepideh doesn't let her. Sepideh and Shohreh went shopping. men were playing volleyball and Nazi was in the villa. Little girls were playing at seaside and Arash was swimming. at this time girls came and said 'Arash isn't at sea side'. men went and rescued him but who was the children's guard. Nazi said: 'Elly, of course... but where is she?'

Because I want readers to watch the movie so I'm just going to talk about Sepideh's Lies, the fact reason of Elly's disappearing.

whole 3 family, of course Ahmad too, looked for her but nothing. Even the Caspian Rescue Team couldn't find and said they are looking for her almost an hour and if she was in the sea she is dead. Police came and asked 'What is her name'. 'Elly...' people answered. 'But what is the full name... Elham, Elmira, Elnaz, Elizabeth, ... What?' Policeman asked again and no one knows even Sepideh that gave her child to Elly... Policeman asked them to bring her Identification Cards... Oh my God ... there isn't Elly's bag here maybe she was gone... 4th lie of Sepideh is hiding Elly's bag from they... and the mobile phone ... Sepideh has it too ... because this shock, Amir got wild and punished his wife, Sepideh... they called one of the phone numbers saved on Elly's mobile... his brother was... Sepideh said Elly doesn't have any brother or sister... so who was he ... yes... the 5th lie of Sepideh was, not to tell them that Elly had a fiancé ... So why was she with us ... she wasn't going to marry him ... the man came there but he understand whole story when the rural woman said all about Ahmad and Elly... and the last lie of Sepideh was to say him nothing about their knowledge of Elly's fiancé to make her a Bad girl ... 'it is not important' whole families said 'Elly is dead and what will happen if we make a lie? she was a bad girl that came here to be introduced with Ahmad when she was with some one else.' ... Sepideh didn't said even Elly anything about Ahmad (7th lie) but what will the man think about Elly...? Yes ... Sepideh made another lie at the end and all the people went back to Tehran... there was just the newly found body of Elly and her sad fiancé.

What do you think about Elly? ... Most of you think that she went to sea to rescue Arash but herself didn't came back ... but maybe in the road back to Tehran someone rubbed her then killed and put in seaside because she was found in very far place... and Maybe many other things ... What happened to Elly? ... What do we think about Elly? this is the main question that make you think about this brilliant movie for a while... but What would happen if Sepideh didn't say any lie? ... why do we say lies with no matter?... In Islam, telling Lie is one of the biggest sins

Maybe because of that some people said its name should be "About a lie..."