The second film from the directors of Ballad of a White Cow, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, is as delicious as the title.
At 70, Mahin (Lily Farhadpour, tremendous), a retired nurse, doesn’t get around like she used to. Her grown-up children have left Iran. Their frequent video calls are punctuated by family duties and bustling in the background.
Mahin has a circle of friends who used to meet at the swimming pool every week, but that has become too expensive. A lively dinner brings together her gaggle of widow chums. One suggests viewing the DVD of her colonoscopy; another has a scandalous tale of getting into a car with a man.
Sadly, these monthly get-togethers are now becoming annual affairs. The friends live far away, and Mahin, who was widowed three decades earlier, seems resigned to her loneliness and sleep-ins.
‘When these women left home there were rumours that they were sent to Europe to be concubines for black soldiers’
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Or is she? Maybe it’s her friend’s pickup story or the radio item on robot companionship, but something spurs the septuagenarian singleton to go out on the prowl. She tries her luck at a hotel where, during her youth, she went to concerts in “plunging necklines and heels; not sneakers and hijabs”. She heads to the park, a bakery and, finally, a pensioners’ restaurant, where she strikes up a conversation with an unmarried taxi driver, Faramarz (Esmail Mehrabi).
It’s a bold move for a Tehrani resident; Mahin, as we learn in one stirring encounter, is not afraid to square up to the morality police. Happily, Faramarz is equally robust. The former soldier once served a month in jail for playing in a wedding band.
Their secret boozy date is a delight to behold, beautifully captured by cinematographer Mohammad Haddadi. A late narrative development swerves the meet-cute into less sure-footed terrain. But this remains an encounter to treasure, jollied along by quiet political protest and poignant notes on widowhood.
My Favourite Cake is on limited release from Friday, September 13th
