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7.5
/10
239 Ratings

LEILA

Directed by Dariush Mehrjui
Iran, 1996
Drama, Romance
  • 124124 minutes

Synopsis

Reza and Leila, an attractive and affluent young couple deeply in love and recently married, discover that Leila is unable to conceive. Invoking tradition, Reza’s mother convinces her daughter-in-law that Reza must, out of necessity, take a second wife to produce an heir.

Synopsis

Reza and Leila, an attractive and affluent young couple deeply in love and recently married, discover that Leila is unable to conceive. Invoking tradition, Reza’s mother convinces her daughter-in-law that Reza must, out of necessity, take a second wife to produce an heir.

Our take

From the director of The Cow, which propelled the Iranian New Wave, this sensitive drama empathetically places us within a female subjectivity. The graceful pacing unravels complex patriarchal structures in post-Revolution Iran that push women to be both victims and enforcers of oppressive values.