My Favourite Cake
Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam’s engaging late-age romance from Iran offers both depth and great performances.
Photo by Hamid Janipour, Image courtesy of Curzon Film Distributors.
Lily Farhadpour: the name is unlikely to mean much to filmgoers outside of Iran who have yet to see My Favourite Cake but once they see it they will take her to their hearts. She is the prime reason for seeing this Tehran-set Berlin prize winner which is almost a two-hander as it tells of an unexpected romantic encounter between two people who have reached the age of seventy. Mahin, the character played by 63-year-old Farhadpour, is a widow who lost her husband in an accident thirty years ago. The man she meets is a divorced taxi driver named Faramarz (Esmaiel Menradi) and most of the film plays out during the few hours that they have together.
My Favourite Cake is the work of the Iranian couple Bentash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam who are here credited as co-writers and co-directors. When they worked together previously Moghadam, a successful actress in her own right, also took on an acting role but on this occasion she does not do so. Indeed, although early on we meet Puran (Mansoureh Ilkhani) who is Mahin’s best friend and witness a dinner party scene in which Mahin hosts other female friends too, the film soon closes in on Mahin and Faramarz. The gossip at the party has set a humorous tone as these elderly friends talk about husbands and men generally and somewhat jokily it has been suggested that it is never too late to look out for an attractive man. In Mahin’s case she has chosen not to remarry because she has never encountered anybody to compare with her late husband. Nevertheless, she is not averse to looking and in a restaurant for pensioners her eye falls on Faramarz and for once she feels that a possibility exists which she should not ignore. And since Faramarz is a taxi driver she can at least make contact with him by asking him to drive her home.
My Favourite Cake might suggest a slightly unlikely tale designed as a piece of romantic escapism to appeal especially to older viewers. But, engaging as it is on that level, there is rather more to this film than that. For one thing the film’s setting is wholly realistic and recognises fully the conditions under which Iranian women live. There is a short scene early on set in a park in which Mahin speaks up in defence of a girl who is in trouble with the morality police because her head is not fully covered. Later on, when she is entertaining Faramarz in her home, Mahin is shown to be fully aware how, quite apart from the gossip of prying neighbours, it is not safe for her to be seen with a strange man in her house. It's also the case that, whereas lightweight romantic films usually embrace an escapist appeal at the expense of real credibility, the two central characters in My Favourite Cake are rooted in the same kind of everyday reality that was found in a classic of the 1950s, Marty.
As it happens, My Favourite Cake ultimately moves in a direction that is somewhat unexpected, a fact that creates problems for the critic. Some have found this development fully effective but others have considered it misjudged. In my own case I support the move but feel that the film’s final scenes don't quite do full justice when it comes to bringing out two contrasted elements both of which can be considered present in the conclusion of the tale. However, I cannot be more precise about that here because to do so would give away a plot development and that would be wrong. What I can say firmly and precisely is that this is a very sympathetic, well photographed film and that the casting is ideal with Mehradi’s performance beautifully judged. Nevertheless, having said that, I have to assert that it is Farhadpour to whom this film belongs. She is the very heart of it and the film is written in a way which makes the 70-year-old retired nurse the driving force of the narrative. That could well mean that, even if older audiences will be particularly drawn to this work, younger women too are likely to welcome it for providing such a strong central female role, one that could surely have found no better actress to embody it than Lily Farhadpour.
Original title: Keyke mahboobe man.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Lily Farhadpour, Esmaiel Mehradi, Melika Pazoki, Mansoureh Ilkhani, Soraya Orang, Homa Mottahedin, Mehdi Pilehavi, Effat Rasoulinezhad, Mohammed Heidari, Sima Esmaeili, Khosro Abbasi.
Dir Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, Pro Gholamreza Mousavi, Behtash Saneeaha, Etienne de Ricaud, Peter Krupenin and Christopher Zitterbart, Screenplay Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, Ph Mohamad Haddadi, Pro Des Maryam Moghadam and Amir Havand, Ed Ata Mehrad, Behtash Sanaeeha and Ricardo Saraiva, Music Henrik Nagy, Costumes Maryam Moghadam and Amir Havand.
Caractères, Filmsazane Javan/Hobab/Watchman Productions/ZDF/Arte-Curzon Film Distributors.
97 mins. Iran/France/Sweden/Germany. 2024. UK Rel: 13 September 2024. Cert. 12A.
