Adapted from Sharhnush Parsipur’s 1989 novella, the film braids together the stories of its female leads: Munis (Shabnam Touloueh), who follows the unravelling political situation with intellectual commitment despite the domineering force of her bullying brother; Munis’ friend, Faeseh (Pegah Ferydoni) who has fallen in love with the oppressive brother running her friend’s life; Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad), who is married to a man who claims entitlement to multiple wives; and Zarin, powerfully portrayed by Orsi Tóth (Lourdes, White God), a woman struggling with the psychological damage of her experiences as a prostitute.
These four lives converge in a beautifully intelligent film that combines the influence of another Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Gabbeh, The Silence), alongside cinematography evoking Tarkovsky and dinner sequences that, as with its moments of surrealism, chime with the work of Buñuel.