Overview
Set amidst the well-to-do Iranian-American community of Los Angeles, “Shirin in Love,” directed by Ramin Niami, is an eccentric romantic comedy and social satire that is a little off-center while also being warm-hearted and wise. This independent film does not have the star power or shiny veneer of mainstream studio comedies with a romantic bent, but it does have attractive leads, quirky supporting players, appealing locations and it offers a rare look at a U.S. subculture that is rarely explored.
The timing of its release may be fortuitous as well. In a recent Village Voice/L.A. Weekly article headlined “Who Killed the Romantic Comedy?” Amy Nicholson talks about how rom-coms once such a reliable Hollywood staple virtually vanished from studio slates in what seems like no time flat. “Even as recently as 2005, five romantic comedies topped $100 million at the box office,” she writes. “Contrast that with 2013: There’s not one romantic comedy in the top 50 films. Not even in the top 100.”
The statistics compiled for this piece are fairly eye-popping because no one would argue that audiences are no longer interested in watching love stories played out through humor. The genre’s disappearance has everything to do with our current culture and studios’ preconceived notions of what will attract global eyeballs and wallets during opening weekends.
Yet Nicholson believes that maybe something positive can come out of this sad state of affairs when she writes: “Bold changes come from vacuums. We’re seeing it happen now. If the major studios won’t make romantic comedies, independent companies will.”
And indie filmmakers like Niami undoubtedly will indeed. “Shirin in Love” stars Nazanin Boniadi (Homeland). She plays Shirin Aryana, an absent minded (read: Diane Keaton/Goldie Hawn-esque) woman in her mid-20s who is desperate to move out of the house of her Persian-immigrant parents, who want to keep her under their thumbs. After graduating from law school and deciding that she wants to be a book critic much to the chagrin of her sculpted, peroxided and controlling mother Maryam (Anahita Kalatbari), who publishes a glossy magazine in Beverly Hills Shirin falls deeper for Mike (Maz Jobrani), an Iranian-American plastic surgeon and family friend whom she has been dating since high school.
Of course, it doesn’t help that William happens to be at Maryam’s party but no one besides half-drunk Shirin can understand why except that the characters are upstanding community members. And so our protagonist ends up getting trashed and needs rescuing by this random white knight which sets destiny’s wheels spinning. Alas, Shirin blacks out just enough during this encounter that when she meets him again while driving up north for an interview with reclusive author Rachel Harson (Amy Madigan), whose son happens to have the same name as said savior and is played by Riley Smith;
Coincidentally, he and Shirin have many issues with their parents; they are both loyal to their families but also long to be free from them. William lives in the typical loneliness of a lighthouse near his mom the stunning Mendocino County and Point Arena scenery is a fitting backdrop for a love story but secrets bind him and his mother together in ways that prevent him from escaping her gravitational pull.
The script’s biggest flaw is that we see Shirin and William are meant to be together from the beginning, because their significant others are such extreme opposites. While Niami does convincingly handle how quickly Shirin’s initial suspicion of William gives way to deep affection, it doesn’t help that Mike has no redeeming qualities and Samantha is so blandly supportive as William’s girlfriend that she might as well be wearing a T-shirt reading “Love Interest Placeholder.”
On the other hand, two of the people who most stand between Shirin and happiness are characters whose performances show off Niami’s comic chops at their best. Mike might not be the guy Shirin needs, but he’s definitely the one her family would want her to have; Maz Jobrani is great at making him likable while also showing us what an overgrown haute-bourgeois baby he is. And as Maryam, Anahita Kalatbari gives a performance that feels like someone deliberately trying (and largely succeeding) to outdo Faye Dunaway’s maternal-control-freak turn in “Mommie Dearest.” It’s doubly impressive considering this is Kalatbari’s first screen role.
Niami was born in Tehran and previously lived in New York, where he made one of that burg’s smartest indie comedies of the ’90s, “Somewhere in the City.” Since moving to Los Angeles he seems to have studied up on that city’s large and affluent Iranian-American community (also lately visible on TV’s “Shahs of Sunset”), because there’s a fond familiarity and an anthropological exactness to its depiction in “Shirin in Love.” Those qualities give new and interesting life to the story’s rom-com staples.
The film will have a unique release in cities with large Iranian-American populations, where it will be shown in both its original English-language version and one dubbed into Farsi.
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