Tried to watch the rom-com This Means War, where Tom Hardy and Chris Pine try to out-do each other in wooing Reese Witherspoon. I made it 30 minutes and DNF'd. Life is too short to watch movies that make me want to claw out my eyes. No, I'm not going to finish it just to hate on it. Sometimes I can, but not this time. Into the scrap heap with it.
Marjane (Chiara Mastroianni) is a bright, happy seven-year-old growing up in Tehran. She likes pop music and Bruce Lee. Her Uncle Anoush (François Jerosme) is finally released from the Shah's prison and is eagerly anticipating a revolution. But when it comes, nothing will ever be the same. Marjane watches as religious extremism takes over her country. By the time she is thirteen, she must be sent away to school in Vienna for her own safety. She is adrift from friends, family, any support structure, an outcast trying to learn what it is to be an adult.
This autobiographical cartoon is stark and poignant, but also funny and sweet. It focuses less on the geopolitical impact of the Iranian Revolution than on the human cost, which is extraordinarily high. I'm not big on coming-of-age tales and I could not have cared less about the details of every failed relationship she had, but this film is important enough to overlook these trivialities. It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and would make a decent double feature with Argo.
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