About Elly

2015 • 118 minutes

About this movie

From the Academy Award winning director of A SEPARATION and the Academy Award nominated THE SALESMAN comes this mesmerizing thriller about a young woman’s mysterious disappearance. With the return of their close friend Ahmad from Germany, a group of old college pals decide to reunite for a weekend outing by the Caspian Sea. The fun starts right away as they catch on to the plan of Sepideh, who has brought along Elly, her daughter's kindergarten teacher, in hopes of setting her up with recently divorced Ahmad. But seemingly trivial lies, which start accumulating from the moment the group arrives at the seashore, come back to haunt them when one afternoon Elly suddenly vanishes. Her disappearance sets in motion a series of deceptions and revelations that threaten to shatter everything they hold dear.

Ratings and reviews

Good job attempting to develop tension in the movie...but several times during the movie it was natural to step back and see how much they were stretching characters to do it. The childishness of many characters (petty lies/dishonesty etc) does not really lend itself to credible tension in the plot. I suspect that, as others have noted, the plot might not cross cultural boundaries that well.

Its Iranian, all subtitles. First 32 minutes is the worst reality show where they literally follow these people and NOTHING happens. Then a kid nearly drowns, then a lady maybe drowns, then everyone lies to one another. The End. The script does not translate to Western culture. Oh, and they even s-ck at charades.

Asghar Farhadi is a master craftsman. So exceptional are his films, one wonders if they are perceiving a documentary of lives unfolding or a film. Bravo!