I saw THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL, directed by Marielle Heller, in New York last March after splitting a bottle of wine with a friend. I’m disclosing this to justify my poor recall, but I wanted to write about DIARY anyway because watching it was a special experience, joyful and weird, substantive and fun. I loved the film immediately and I want to figure out why.
Author: Eliza Rosenberry
By many accounts, Joan Harrison was the first female producer in Hollywood. After a decade working under Alfred Hitchcock—first as his secretary in England, then on his writing team in Hollywood—and possibly following a brief, unsatisfying attempt at independent screenwriting, she joined Universal Studios as a producer.
ABOUT ELLY is about three Tehran couples who rent a seaside villa together for a long weekend getaway. It’s about Sepideh, the dynamic group leader who rallies everyone’s enthusiasm. It’s about Ahmed, their newly divorced friend visiting from Germany. It’s about contemporary Iran, about family, tradition, and truth. In fact, so little of this movie is about the titular Elly, an acquaintance invited along at the last minute to meet Ahmed, that she’s only in the movie for a short time.