About Elly (2009)
Movie · 2009 · Drama · 1h 59m · NR · FA
Curator score: 9.1/10 (106.4K ratings)
Overview
The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.
Ratings
- Curator score: 9.1/10
- IMDb: 7.9/10
- Letterboxd: 4.13/5
- Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
- Metacritic: 87
- TMDB: 7.5/10
Director
Asghar Farhadi
Production
Dreamlab
Cast
Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Payman Maadi, Merila Zarei, Ahmad Mehranfar, Mani Haghighi, Rana Azadivar, Taraneh Alidoosti, Saber Abar
Where to watch
Philo
Curator Review
Verdict
A tightly wound moral drama that turns a simple outing into a devastating study of guilt, class, gender expectations, and the stories people tell to protect themselves. It’s patient, tense, and emotionally exacting, with the kind of escalating unease that lingers after the credits.
Best for
- Viewers who like slow-burn suspense built from everyday conversation
- Fans of morally complex family and social dramas
- People interested in Iranian cinema and realist filmmaking
- Audiences who appreciate ensemble acting and ambiguity
Skip if
- You want a fast-paced thriller or clear-cut mystery
- You prefer tidy resolutions and explicit answers
- You dislike emotionally stressful, confrontational dramas
- You’re looking for light entertainment or broad melodrama
Overview
About Elly is one of those films that feels almost disarmingly ordinary until it suddenly isn’t. What begins as a cheerful seaside getaway among friends and families gradually reveals a web of social pressure, unspoken rules, and self-protective lies. Asghar Farhadi stages the drama with remarkable control, letting small evasions accumulate into something devastating.
Worth noting
The film’s power comes from how little it needs to do to become suspenseful. A missing person story becomes a moral pressure cooker, and every character’s version of events feels shaped by fear, pride, or obligation. The ensemble is superb, and the film’s realism makes the emotional fallout feel painfully plausible.
Bottom line
It’s not a mystery in the conventional sense so much as a social autopsy. Farhadi is interested in what people conceal from each other, and from themselves, when a crisis exposes the fault lines in friendship, gender roles, and class. The result is tense, humane, and quietly brutal.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Jacob (5★) · 760 likes
"I knew." For years now, About Elly has been the film I recommend most passionately to people. It's one of the best I've ever seen, and even on a fifth viewing, it fascinates me. Many can appreciate the confidence of Farhadi's writing and the absolutely remarkable lead performance from Golshifteh Farahani (and a similarly talented supporting cast), though the plot itself is met with a more mixed reception. I've come to realize just how inherently Iranian this film is, as… more
nick (4★) · 420 likes
About Elly is the prime example of an excellent director extracting all the sensational elements out of a not otherwise sensational story, maximize its entertainment values, and inject his social commentary into it. It's a gripping, extremely patient slow-burn of how normal everyday life can easily spin out of hand over something as trivial as a reckless decision, well, many reckless decisions. It starts with cheerful, sunshine-drenched depiction of an Iranian weekend getaway featuring a group of colleagues and friends,… more
Emily Housel (4.5★) · 306 likes
Golshifteh Farahani is the most beautiful person I've ever seen. A bitter ending is better than an endless bitterness.
cinemasauron (5★) · 256 likes
From one of world cinema's master storytellers & the writer-director of cinematic gems such as A Separation & The Past, About Elly is yet another masterpiece of intricate human drama from Asghar Farhadi which with its extremely gripping, morally challenging & simplest in approach narration turns out to be as riveting a tale of suspense, mystery & realism as the best of the genre can offer. Filmed with steady control by utilising nothing but simple real-life conversations to move its story forward, making full… more
Mobasshir (5★) · 194 likes
Asghar Farhadi is really master of cinema, This movie proves that you don't need a big budget, special effects, killer soundtrack. Nice build up to the climax Terrific and surreal acting, good cinematography and a great storyline.. I really enjoyed watching it and will definitely watch it again.
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Topics
Iranian drama, slow-burn suspense, ensemble cast, moral dilemma, realism, social critique, psychological tension, family outing, female perspective, art-house