Shayda begins with a pressing safety precaution at the airport. When Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and her daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) land in Australia, Mona is urgently instructed on how to identify a police officer if her father were to track them down from Iran. Though Mona quietly nods, Shayda is slightly exasperated, worried that a 6-year-old may reasonably not remember what to do if and when it happens. But anxiety over a scenario washes away, as trying to balance between ensuring safety for your daughter and cowering in terror from your husband is a juggling act.
The film is a window to women who live in constant fear even in the absence of physical threat. Based on director Noora Niasari’s childhood experience with her mother, Shayda is less an individual sliver of exceptionalism and more of a sample size of a troubled population. Shayda and Mona are herded with other mothers in a women’s shelter, where some cast a rude look towards Shayda’s standoffishness (one sarcastically calls her a Persian princess) and some are floating on the surface, riding it out day by day. None of the women have a planned solution.
Even being six thousand miles away from her town in Tehran, Shayda wields a wary eye at other Iranians who could relay information about her whereabouts. Whether that occurs or not may not matter; the court eventually gives her husband Hossein (Osamah Sami) temporary unsupervised visits, to which he plans on exercising immediately. But Shayda’s maternal responsibilities sometimes take over her concerns. Their relocation takes place during Nowruz, or Persian New Year (which is March 20, coincidentally falling on the film’s run in the Boston area). Despite the lack of community that boosts the holiday spirit, Shayda has to muster the energy to regulate Mona’s anxieties and cultural closeness during a tumultuous time.
As in most eponymous films, Shayda is performance-forward, and watching Ebrahimi navigate this transitional period is nothing short of spectacular. While Ebrahimi’s “mind your business” attitude from her starring role in Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider migrates a bit in Shayda, the character doesn’t have a strong trait that dedicates her to a specific arc. Neither vengeance or victimization is in the tea leaves, but the in-the-moment focus on normalizing Mona’s life and protecting her few ounces of freedom is a mighty enough drive. Still, Shayda has the reactionary emotions to roll her eyes at some of the shelter’s co-inhabitants or feel enraged when an elderly Iranian couple refuse to be at the same party as her, retorting disapproval in her divorce proceedings — elements of the human behind the shield.
When Hossein finally appears on screen, he projects a smallish, bespectacled figure — the kind of intentional contrast to the imposing shadow that Shayda feels behind her. While he tries to play nice in front of Mona, Hossein’s stares and insulting jabs are public restraints of someone capable of more behind closed doors. But if there is a twinkling star in this sordid situation, it is Zahednia’s puppy-eye performance as Mona, who loves her mother so much yet exhibits innocuous panic whenever she’s placed in a tug-of-war of secrets between her parents.
The film might benefit from a shorter format while maintaining the point (personally, I could have done away with the love interest that sparked an unnecessary dread in the story), but it’s hard to argue for less screen time between Ebrahimi and Zahednia. Their love isn’t extraordinary, but it’s familiar. Shayda isn’t invincible, but she is a hero. And if there’s one thing to take away, it’s to appreciate the common perseverance in motherhood everywhere.
Shayda
2023
dir. Noora Niasari
118 min.
Opens Friday, 3/15 @ Kendall Square Cinema
