Appropriate Behavior

I make an effort not to know too much about a film before I see it. That helps me have an experience less tainted by expectations, but it can also lead me to silly snap judgments that are dead wrong.

After a few minutes I'd decided that Desiree Akhavan's Appropriate Behavior was just another in a long string of low budget 20- something self-involved dramedies I've seen in the last couple of years. But by the end I realized that Akhavan had taken that trope, and run her own unique and very funny spin on it. And the humor was a big part of what made it special. This movie was flat out funny. It wasn't afraid of being absurd or larger than life, or actively witty. It was intensely human and touching at times, but it also had great comic timing. In that respect Ahkavan's cinematic view of life and relationships in New York has more in common with Woody Allen circa Annie Hall and Manhattan than most mumblecore we've grown used to. She also created a unusually lovable (if self-sabotaging) main character for herself in Shirin; a bi-sexual young Iranian woman still in the closet to her parents, and attempting to recover from a painful breakup.

Shirin doesn't really fit in anywhere. Because she's bi, lesbians (including the woman who broke her heart) view her with suspicion, assuming she's 'just visiting' relationships with women. Her parents keep waiting for her to meet a nice boy. She feels estranged from the Iranian-American culture she grew up with, but she's not as self-consciously hip and cool as the hipster poseurs she's surrounded by. And she has a knack for making some comic but awful life decisions, from a painfully failed threesome, to a gig teaching film-making to disinterested 5 year olds.

This is a rueful and smart film about how screwed up and alone we all are… and yet how sweet life is in it's sad and silly way. It's an impressive calling card for Akhavan, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.

Follow up -- I saw this again, sharing it with some friends, and found it only grew on me. I was even more touched by the sweet heart at the middle of the comedy.

In Brooklyn, Shirin is lost after breaking up with her girlfriend Maxine. She's got a Masters in journalism but no job. Her Persian family doesn't know about her bisexuality. Her brother is annoyingly successful. Her boy-crazy friend Crystal recommends her to Ken (Scott Adsit) for a job teaching movie-making to kids but it turns out to be more like daycare. There are constant flashbacks to her relationship with Maxine as she tries to move on with other people.

At its heart, the movie is the traditional single-gal-in-the-city. Desiree Akhavan infuses it with a little bit of a Persian family and bisexuality which keeps it fresh. Her writing is pretty good especially for her theatrical debut. There are a couple of really good laughs. Buying a bra scene is really funny with Crystal's reactions. I also love her mother's reaction to her coming out. Desiree's acting is pretty good but not great. Overall, this is a nice little angsty indie and hopefully this is the start of an interesting new voice.

There's a certain type of movie that Sundance always selects: quirky comedies about lovable oddballs who are in the middle of a crisis and want everyone to know about it. This is Appropriate Behavior. I will say in its favour that there isn't enough bisexual representation in cinema nor is there enough about American- Iranians. This has both, but at the same time writer director Desiree Akhavan doesn't want to examine either aspect in depth. This is both refreshing because these aspects of lead character Shirin's identity are assured aspects of who she is and aren't part of her crisis, and frustrating because aside from these elements there is nothing that makes this movie stand out in any way from the quirky indie comedies that come out every year from Sundance.

Behavior is about Shirin (played by Akhavan). Recently having broken up with the live-in girlfriend her conservative Persian parents thought was her "roommate" the film plays in pieces as we watch Akhavan try to put her life back together without the woman who defined so much of it. As a bonus we are also treated to flashbacks of the rise and fall of her relationship with her ex. It is... not very exciting.

The film is written with so many pithy one liners you can tell it was written to death. This makes for great screencaps and dialogue you can use as gif sets but as an overarching script with characterization not so much. The narrative is fairly elegantly sliced and diced so that you get just the right amount of mix of past and present but at the same time... Just who cares? This feels directly aimed at a group of lost 20 somethings stumbling their way through life, but as a lost 20 something myself I'm sick of seeing these kind of movies (always set in NYC!) and the individual scenes don't really do anything for me. There are still some aspects that make this movie watchable: a threesome that goes wrong (I'm always partial to sex scenes that are good and by good I mean manage to maintain the flow of the story. So many movies just have all plot and emotion stop to get a few thrusts in. Akhavan understands how to continue to build the narrative using the sex scene). The ending of the film is very cathartic and pitch perfect as well.

How Akhavan manages to nail some of the most difficult aspects of filmmaking while flubbing the middle is beyond me. It gives me hope however that she'll continue to improve.

I'm not one for lengthy reviews. I thought it was an interesting slice of life. Pretty close to reality for a gal of this age in NYC.

Like the rest of us, this character is just trying to figure it all out. She's flawed in a number of ways and watching her try and just make it through the day is mildly uncomfortable and usually quite funny.

A lot of these reviews are calling this a "hipster" or "shallow" film and I have to disagree. In fact, I don't think these people know what a hipster really is because this movie doesn't depict that at all. If anything, it's more about the lost generation of GEN Y. Those of us who are too old to be hip and too young to have truly lived in the grunge life. The generation that should probably have it figured out by now, but we don't. And that's okay. The title character, Sherin, is exactly that.

It didn't strike me as the kind of movie that was supposed to leave you feeling like a new person with a whole new outlook on life. It was just one girl's well told story.

I saw this film at Frameline 38 on June 27, 2014 at 7 pm in San Francisco at the amazing Castro Theater. Writer, director and lead actress Desiree Akhavan shows us the story of Shirin who is a wonderful, loving, flawed, fragile, F**ked up human being just like the rest of us. She will not get over her ex-girlfriend, she looks for love in all the wrong places (with hilarious results) and has very limited success when trying to come out to her family who have a selective hearing problem. The Q & A after the film was wonderful and Ms. Akhavan is clearly the Queer, Persian equivalent of Sandra Bullock - funny, talented, charming, intelligent, beautiful and very comfortable with her awkwardness. Absolutely delightful - go see this film.