The Persian Version dir. Maryam Keshavarz (Audience US Dramatic Winner)

Zac: Trying to summarize this film from a plot perspective is going to prove quite difficult, but I'm gonna take a deep breath and see what comes out: Maryam Keshavarz's The Persian Version follows a young Iranian-American woman as she grapples with her lesbian and immigrant identities while navigating a strained relationship with her mother and dealing with the fallout of a family secret revealed during her father's heart transplant. Okay, sure, on paper, I guess that's not too complex.

There's a decent amount to like here but, but dude.... the pacing is crazy. Every moment is edited to hold equal weight and it seems like the film doesn't know when to slow down and linger in a moment, which for such a complex drama, only serves to detract from more or less every emotional beat. It's an editing issue, I think, but it also has to do with the fact that it's simultaneously a story about a woman learning to control her own narrative AND a family drama with TWO different plots that are independently compelling BUT ultimately COMPLETELY incongruous. And while both of these could work great on their own, when cut together they do nothing but get in each other's way and the end result feels overstuffed and jumbled, like nothing we see is in service of any greater narrative.

I think it's trying to do too much stylistically, too. The film dips its toes into fourth-wall breaks, meta self-references, on-screen text, and Worst Person in the World-style time-freezes, but it doesn't commit to any of those techniques for more than a shot or two.

It's shot BEAUTIFULLY though. The cinematography and lighting and costuming are unbelievably good. And both halves of this film's identity are worthwhile stories to tell, but maybe if the film had more room to breathe and explore each element on its own rather than cutting them together, each could actually feel worth engaging with.

Morgan: I really liked the start of this film, it was shot really well, but the more and more we got into it, the less I felt like I had a grasp on understanding what was happening, similar to what Zac said. With several timelines all following different aspects (which I do think is doable in some contexts), I felt unable to really understand or connect with the characters of the film. I wish I knew more about all of her brothers and her father, and something more about their personalities to really grasp on to. There were so many threads within the film, and I just wish they were tied together in a more cohesive way. Often times, when I thought something would connect towards the end, it just opened up another question.

That being said, I definitely didn't regret seeing this! It was a really fun watch, and I especially enjoyed the dance sequences to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," which were just purely joyous. I would be very open to given this film another viewing, and maybe it being outside of the context of a weekend filled to the brim would movies would give my mind better priming to watch it.

(Spoiler warning for the film???)

The image that is used in all the promotion is starting to make feel silly, because this image has been photoshopped to remove a visible pregnancy (which is a major plot point of the film), and the more I stare at this picture the more I find it ridiculous that I hadn't noticed before. I just keep looking at it and it's very obvious that the green dress doesn't look right. End of aside.