We’ve all heard the saying it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but what about those who dare to love again? It’s an audacious thought for anyone, but for a 70-year-old Iranian widow it’s a last-ditch effort to feel alive again. That’s the premise of a charming Iranian romantic-comedy that’s spiced up with unexpected radicalism.
Every day is the same for Mahin (played by the delightful Lili Farhadpour): sleeping in until noon; scrambling to answer FaceTime calls from her daughter overseas; tending to her garden and making trips to the not-so-local market from her home on the outskirts of Tehran. It's a mundane setting but each moment is presented as a beautifully framed vignette by co-directors Maryam Moqadam and Behtash Sanaeeha.
During a rare ladies’ get together at her house, Mahin and her friends playfully one-up each other with the growing list of aches that have plagued them in old age – think a poker table, but with prescriptions instead of playing cards. The pace quickly changes when one of Mahin’s friends regales the group with her no-strings attached fling with an unmarried taxi driver.
For Moqadam and Behtash Sanaeeha, these chats are for more than flights of fancy, they're acts of female rebellion. Iran’s morality police, a force that suppresses women’s rights and compromises their safety, is never far from the characters’ thoughts, especially when Mahin springs to the rescue of a young woman being arrested for not wearing her hijab.
This charming romantic-comedy is spiced up with unexpected radicalism
That existential threat doesn’t stop Mahin borrowing her friend’s story of late-blossoming love as a playbook for her own life. Hopeful of romance, she stakes out a local eatery until she finds her mark: an elderly taxi driver named Faramarz (Esmail Mehrabi) who is wallowing about not having a woman at home to cook for him.
It isn’t long before the pair are en route to Mahin’s house, courtesy of a ride in Faramarz’s shabby cab. Like Mahin, divorcee Faramarz has been on his own for years, but their mutual loss brings them together like well-worn puzzle pieces.
The two veteran actors are a special pairing: there’s an infectious cheekiness to performances and the giddiness of teenagers bunking off school as they spend a night evading nosy neighbours, get tipsy off of wine (illegal in Tehran) and dancing Into the early hours. In the context of Iran’s conservative values, where unmarried members of the opposite sex cannot be alone together, these acts are as political as they are romantic.
Beyond their physical yearnings, the two kindred spirits promise to assist each other until their dying day, with everything from fixing dodgy lights to baking rich desserts. For all of their sincerity, there’s a lingering sense that things are a bit too good to be true.
My Favourite Cake is radical and heartwarming. Above all, it’s a reminder that in a world where everyone is scrutinised and judged, pure love remains timeless.
In UK cinemas Sep 13.