Honestly, I did enjoy this movie. Reyhan, the widow, is expected by her family to agree to become the second wife of her husband's brother. Instead, she decides to take a small step over local traditional lines and run her former husband's restaurant herself. All well and good if her cooking was not so good and her brother-in-law did not himself own his own restaurant down the road. With plates of piping hot food and good ambiance, Reyhan takes no prisoners in this war between men, women, social traditions, and healthy appetites.
What is particularly enjoyable about this movie is how it portrays the conflict between traditional ways of caring for women and children and widows and "progressive" ways of doing the same and does so by using two characters who do not, at least at the beginning, seem to be diabolically wrong in their intents. One character loses in the end and the other wins in the end but not necessarily because one is more honorable than the other so much as one is trying to be honorable in a less controlling way. Iranian filmmaker Kambozia Partovi, lets the strength of Reyhan's cooking, quietness, and determination bring down the social conventions that would prefer to see her become the secluded second wife of a man she does not love.
He has the law on his side and he has the culture. But she has a talent and the wisdom to fight the battle on ground she can win on. At the heart of the ethical and cultural dilemas presented in this movie seems to be a fundamental debate between that aspect of Iranian culture that says to a man that it is dishonorable to fail to protect and care for the women of their family on the one hand, and the aspect of Iranian culture that says that there is honor in a person determining their own destiny and providing for their own family, even if that someone is a woman.
Reynah is faced with a numbe rof difficult decisions in this movie. She must decide the level of risk she is willing to take and the length to which she will go to maintain her independence and/or her children's health and well being. Some of her decisions are not easy and there are no simple answers. But over time we come to like her because on the whole, we regard the decisions that she makes to be made with a rather deep but silent wisdom.
All in all, I feel inspired. The filmaker has taken a few more inches of ground by finding a place on the border of tradition (the kitchen of a restaurant) and used it to make a point. And an excellent movie if you like cooking.
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