This is the stories of three middle-aged sad and depressed Iranians trying to cope with the reality that love has simply passed them by.. In this very bittersweet comedy from writer-director Ali Jaberansari we see how these lonely individuals cope with the lack of a romantic relationship .
Overweight Mina (Forough Ghajabagli) ironically is the receptionist at a busy beauty clinic which helps people change their bodies. She uses her job to copy down any good looking man’s phone number and sets about cat-fishing them. She gets off hiding in the cafe she has arranged to meet her latest handsome victim so she can see their annoyance at being stood up. Her other obsession is ice cream by the bucket load.
Closeted champion bodybuilder Hessam Fazli (Amir Hessam Bakhtiari ) is a trainer who has been reduced to working with elderly men, until one of them suggests that his nephew Arshia (Amir Reza Alizadeh) is training to be a bodybuilder and needs help. Hessam is clearly smitten with the young man, but even when we believe him to be happy he still has such a glum look on his face.
However the gloomist of the three protagonist is Vahid (Mehdi Saki) whose job is as a singer at religious funerals in a mosque. He’s estranged from his fiancée which doesn’t seem to upset him beyond having to break the news to his religious parents. His best friend decides the way out of his depression is to start singing happy songs and gets him booked as wedding singer instead.
Without wishing to post any spoilers here, we can at least say that if you think this is one of those movies that in the end everybody is happy, then you will be disappointed.
Mina enrolls in a dating class and discovers that ordinary looking men are not that bad. Hessam’s homoerotic fantasy does not pan out nor does he chance of becoming a film star too., and Vahid falls for the right girl at the wrong time.
The script has more than its fair share of deadpan humor which the three very talented lead actors interpret very well. The film shows how a modern Tehran now deals with the whole concept of finding one’s own relationship than waiting for one’s parents to arrange one. However if it is meant to be an argument for the new system, then it is not a convincing one.
