Once upon a time, for about forty years, I was a practicing lawyer specializing in family law (i.e. divorce and related stuff). Even so, despite my desire to help clients through tough circumstances, there was one subset of cases that I did not at all relish: those involving frustratingly intractable disputes over custody of young children,. Oftentimes at least one of the parents was so angry and/or narcissistic that they were totally incapable of considering the best interests of their child(ren), a situation that made any sort of negotiated resolution virtually impossible. Among the worst was the parent (typically a man) whose sense of entitlement was rooted in a cultural or religious viewpoint sharply at odds with Western norms and law. If these custody disputes were tough on me, the experience was always far worse for the person I was representing in such cases (typically a woman) – terrified for their child’s well-being and of a very real threat of physical violence to themselves from the disturbed former partner. Their courage and determination always impressed me.
Which brings me to Shayda, an excellent new movie about this subject that's opening this weekend. It’s a story told not from the lawyer’s POV (thankfully) but through the experience of a mother and, remarkably and quite evocatively, sometimes through the eyes of her six-year-old daughter. And it sure rings true, both as a drama and a story of resilience and hope. The film premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and won the audience award in the World Dramatic Competition. It was Australia’s official submission for this year’s Academy Awards in the Best International Feature category.
Shayda is written and directed by Noora Niasari, born in Tehran but from a young age raised in Australia. Niasari recently won the 2023 award for Best Direction in a Feature Film from the Australian Directors’ Guild for this, her first feature film. All of these awards attest to the considerable strength and appeal of this movie. Its story is based to a considerable degree, on Niasari’s own childhood experiences. Here’s an excerpt from some of her remarks on this:
When I was five years old my first experience of freedom was inside an Australian women's shelter living alongside other women and children seeking a life without fear.
Despite being a world away from our family in Iran, my mother taught me how to speak Farsi, how to celebrate Nowruz [Persian New Year], how to Persian dance, read poetry and above all, she taught me about the resilience and strength of Iranian women.
Women like my mother were ostracized [in Iran and the Iranian diaspora] for seeking basic human rights. The right to ask for divorce, to have custody over their children, to choose how they dress, to dance in the streets, to let their hair flow in the wind and exhale. That's all my mother wanted, these basic freedoms, for herself and for her daughter.
The mother in the film is Shayda, an Iranian woman who, along with daughter Mona, has accompanied her husband Hossein to Australia, where he is training to become an M.D.. Things have not gone well in their marriage, and by the time the film commences, Shayda and Mona are living in a women’s shelter. Over the course of the film, we will gain a better understanding of why.
Shayda’s fervent hope is to be free from her estranged husband and to make a better life for her daughter. But Hossein has other ideas.
As the film opens, we meet Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and Mona (Selina Zahednia, amazing) in an airport with an Australian lady, who is leading the two of them around. She tells Mona (through Shayda) to look carefully at where they are at that moment and remember this place. Later we learn that the lady is Joyce (Leah Purcell), the director of the women’s shelter. Joyce tells Mona that if her father ever brings her here, she should run to one of the officers and ask for help. She tells Shayda that if that were to happen Mona’s name is on a protected minors’ list, and the officers will detain her while they search this watchlist and then immediately contact the shelter when they find her name. They are at the airport because just the day before Hossein had suggested to Mona in a phone call that she would soon get to go on an airplane ride with him back “home” to see her beloved grandma – notwithstanding an apparent court restraining order prohibiting this. Shayda’s attempt to act calm and reassuring for a very worried looking Mona immediately crumbles, and she collapses in tears on a nearby bench. Without knowing much about their past, we are already drawn to both mother and daughter.
Only then are we introduced to the shelter. Eventually, we will learn why Shayda has fled there. At the shelter, we begin to see how both mother and child are anxiously and yet hopefully beginning a new life there - as are other women in a variety of analogous situations. Shayda has filed for divorce (which she never could have done in Iran). Although the legal proceedings are not shown, we soon learn, along with Shayda, that despite pleas from her representatives to limit Hossein’s contact with Mona, the court has allowed him unsupervised visitation rights of four hours a week with his daughter. This is disappointing to Shayda, but it gives us an opportunity to meet the guy, when she brings Mona to the designated meeting place in a shopping mall.
At the first custody exchange, Hossein (Osamah Sami) looks nice and sincere. But he is thirty minutes late, an issue he shrugs off. And it soon becomes clear that Hossein‘s first priority is convincing his wife to drop the whole thing, reconcile with him and move back to Iran. He promises to change. He insists he still loves Shayda and that deep down she loves him back. Life together in Iran will be so much better and won’t it be great to be among family again? Oh, and by the way, you should know that people back home are talking about how shameful your actions have been, he adds.
This sort of gambit happens all the time with controlling, abusive men in such situations. They truly believe the crap they are spieling. Shayda knows better, of course, and doesn’t bite. She departs as fast as she can.
The shelter location is not known to Hossein, and Shayda is fearful of going out, even to the local bodega, for fear of being seen by him or anyone who might know him. Eventually, like director Niasari’s mother, she does begin to explore, tentatively, the possibilities of her new freedom, dancing, letting her hair flow in the wind, meeting new people, exhaling. But with Hossein out there somewhere, it is still frightening. While initially Hossein presented as a possibly decent guy to us, with each succeeding custody exchange, he gets more insistent and scarier; and while we root for Shayda and Mona, we also worry for them.
As Shayda, the award-winning Ebrahimi gives a nuanced, credible reading - expressing the character’s fear and distress, hope and joy, maternal love, concern and vigilance, together with remarkable courage and strength - all very naturally without a hint of affectation. It’s a poignant, sympathetic, ultimately uplifting bravura performance. All of the other key actors are very fine, as well.
Like the best international and cross-cultural films - films like
Monsoon Wedding (2001),
A Separation (2011),
Roma (2018),
The Farewell (2019) -
Shayda has another dimension that adds to its interest. It gives us a chance to see aspects of another culture - with customs, attitudes and expectations quite different from, and sometimes surprisingly congruent with, our own – through the very human eyes and soul of a very relatable protagonist. Not anonymous members of a labelled group in some press report, not a stereotype, but rather someone not unlike ourselves, whose life may touch us.
And in the person of Shayda, we get not just her relief in escaping a society that oppresses women like her, but a nostalgia and pride in the Persian heritage she has carried with her to Australia, represented by the songs and poetry she is passing on to Mona and the traditional celebration of Nahruz, the Persian New Year, in which they participate with other Iranian emigres.
In its portrayal of a woman trying not only to survive but to make a new life and thrive in the shadow of a breakup with a malevolent ex, Shayda brings to mind another memorable movie, the Irish film Herself (2020) starring the brilliant Clare Dunne - which is also well worth checking out, if you haven’t seen it.
As a first feature,
Shayda has a few weaknesses, most notably in the way we are just dropped into the opening scenes, which was a bit confusing at first. But overall it is an assured work - a fascinating, provocative, engaging, emotionally riveting picture with strong performances and characters you will not soon forget. You should check it out.
1 hour 57 minutes Rated PG-13
Grade: B+
Shayda has just commenced a rolling release – It opened in New York and L.A. on March 1; and is opening in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC. and several other cities this weekend (March 8), with more towns and venues added weekly. To find the opening date for this film at a theater near you check Shayda’s official website HERE.
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