The film quietly touches on so many issues of living together with another, of having a family, of having an unfulfilled desire for creativity. Most of all, it is a very human story presented in a very human and intimate manner. The director is obviously a master of his art. The characters are very full, yet they are not revealed entirely and keep surprising us until the end. They are quite independent. In fact, despite a 12 year married life, they do not know each other that much either!
Even in translation, the dialogues between husband and wife remained brilliant and with some peculiar sense of poetry! I can only envy the farsi-speaking audience!
Roya has a vivid imagination for tales and stories, with which she entertains her cute young son and daughter. However, she is not satisfied with being just a mother and a housewife. She starts going to a film-writing course in the University. Her husband has his own apprehensions about the literary ambitions of his wife. The two of them try to keep their love and family together, while stumbling at their differing expectations, fears, and cracks of communication.
The central topic of the film is a much discussed one: the difficulties that face those women in the more patriarchal societies of the Middle East that want to express themselves publicly /artistically as independent persons. A number of now famous writers had to fight with the reluctance of their more conservative husbands to be overshadowed in public life by their gentler partner. Also, they've had to balance their individualist pursuits with the overbearing social duty to be devoted to the family. In this film, the husband is not conservative, their standings in the family are on par, but still issues pop up. This makes it all the more interesting for a European audience, as well as, showing a more realistic portrait of the middle-class family in modern Muslim countries.
Although this is a drama, somehow it had a light feeling to it (except for the final parts). It felt lyrical, a bit like a fairy tale, and the same time homey and very realist.
