Only one guess needed to work out why I was here really - I'm a big fan of Golshifteh Farahani (VTC, Hood Witch, The Night Eats the World, Paterson, Alpha) - links to my reviews! She plays Sepideh, the (social) leader of a group of middle-class university folk and their young families from Tehran. She's organised a three-day getaway for the crowd to a small, but fairly isolated resort on the Caspian Sea coast, which is about 60 miles to the north of the capital. The journey has taken them about three or four hours. Sepideh has secretly invited Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), her daughter’s quiet playschool teacher, with the goal of setting her up with Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), a friend of the group visiting from Germany, who is recovering from a painful divorce.
When they get there, the villa they usually book and use is only available for one night due to a booking error, so after much negotiation, the local people find them a fairly run-down bungalow right on the beach next to the fairly wild and often active sea. They grasp the task of making the most of it, despite the foul-up and the work they have to put in to make this bungalow in any way habitable. But they do - and cheerfully treat that itself as an adventure. They end up playing games, dancing and teasing each other - seizing the day (as Robin Williams might have said)!
However, Elly appears somewhat reserved and repeatedly mentions that she needs to return home after one night because of her sick mother - but Sepideh hides her luggage and does everything she can to prevent her from leaving. She's not going to have her matchmaking activities taken away lightly!
The next morning, while everyone's playing games and enjoying the break, Elly keeps an eye on the children playing near the water. Moments later, a couple of children run to the men playing volleyball, shouting and screaming that the young boy is in trouble in the water. Everyone drops everything and races into the sea in order to find and save the boy, which they eventually do, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. However, when the panic subsides, the group realises Elly is missing. They fear that she could have drowned trying to save the boy, but hope that she's rejected Sepideh's pleadings, left her bag behind and headed back off to her mother in Tehran.
There's no mobile phone signal where they are, but they can get one by driving a little way down the road and/or using a landline in the house of the people who had organised the rental. They can't get through to good information from Tehran as to whether or not Elly is back there. As hours pass without a body or any sign of her, the initial panic turns into internal paranoia and blame. The friends begin to question who Elly actually was/is - they realise none of them, even Sepideh, even knows her full name.
This is the meat of the film and story - as we spend time amongst the characters as layers of deceit unravel, and information is kept back from each other - especially what Sepideh knows about Elly's situation at home and why she's trying to set her up with Ahmad. Social panic breaks out between them as they try to decide what to do. In the meantime, the local makeshift sea-rescue team head out in a very small boat, but have to give up the search quickly because of the weather and conditions putting them at risk.
As snippets of information and backstory creep out, the men in the group become furious with Sepideh and the brassy plan she's trying to hatch, especially when it becomes clear by now that she hardly knows Elly at all. It turns out that Elly is, in fact, engaged to a man - but has secretly told Sepideh that she doesn't want him - but can't shake him off. Now, apparently in Iranian culture, hostessing a married/engaged woman on a weekend trip to meet another man carries severe moral and legal implications. So yes, to protect their own reputations and avoid scandal, should it turn out that Elly is dead, the group starts turning on Elly, accusing her of being dishonourable or manipulative.
The group pressures Sepideh to lie to save Elly's memory (should she turn out to be dead) and spare everyone the shame. So it all gets very socially (and legally/morally) complicated because nobody (at least at first) is willing (or able) to come out and tell the truth of what's happened to various people who are now becoming interested in the situation. I'll say no more than that in terms of plot and what unfolds, because, yes, the main thrust and focus of the film is very much about the group processes and navigating the best outcome for everyone - bearing in mind that they still don't know if Elly is dead or back with her mother (whom, incidentally, she didn't tell about this trip - for the cultural and practical reasons above).
There is much handheld camerawork throughout the film as shooting often darts around the rooms as the characters interact with each other trying to find a solution and the truth. For once, it does feel like it's probably the right way to use a handheld camera, but it does eventually get a bit much (for me at least)! The location is great though and claustrophobia reigns as the anxiety and unpredictability of the situation rolls out - and for much of the film, we're in the dark as to the real facts as much as most of the group members. So it's got a bit of a 'whodunit' feel to it - and certainly mystery.
The whole cast are great in their performances, including the children, but the star of the show clearly is Golshifteh and she commands every scene that she's in, totally convincingly. Which is most of them! Incidentally, About Elly was one of her final Iranian films before she moved to France due to political tensions with Iranian authorities over her career choices outside Iran.
The director deliberately omitted a traditional musical score, relying instead on the sounds of crashing waves and ocean winds to build atmosphere and tension, certainly throughout the second half of the film - and it works well. It's a super film, but sadly not available on any streaming service just now. I was able to pick up the DVD in a second-hand online shop in the UK and I'm sure it will be shown on some TV channels on rotation. Recommended.
