With the recent (and well overdue) influx of films and TV shows about women in New York making terrible life decisions, (Lena Dunham obviously leads this charge, with films like Frances Ha and Obvious Child and the gloriously stupid Broad City following behind) it can be easy to groan "really? another one" when another film about a woman in her 20s having life/relationship problems is announced. Luckily Appropriate Behavior, the feature debut of Iranian Desiree Akhavan manages to distinguish itself from the pack whilst also returning to the tropes of what is now becoming a very successful genre.
Akhavan's Shireen is first shown dumping all of the belongings that she kept in her ex-girlfriend's apartment in a dumpster - other than a giant silver strap-on that she bought for the afformented ex's birthday - and striding off (somewhat reluctantly) into her new life. Just like Greta Gerwig's Frances and Lena Dunham's Hannah, we meet Shireen at a moment where her life has utterly fallen apart, and oversee how she (attempts to) piece it back together. Shireen has multiple problems - she's newly single, she's bisexual but not "out" to her Iranian family, she needs a new place to live and a new job. And while she faces setbacks getting most of these goals, we're always confident in her ability to achieve them, and at the end of the film, in a very simple but very effective shot, we see that she's able to do this.
Every film about a woman in a mid-20s crisis needs a good leading lady, and Appropriate Behaviour more than has that in Akhavan. She's like a brilliant deadpan cross between Rosario Dawson, Aubrey Plaza and Greta Gerwig, choosing to express her problems with a pained look rather than a full-blown hissy fit like Dunham. What really works for Akhavan herself and her film is the way that she keeps her Iranian roots pride of place. While she moans about the incompatibility between her sexuality and her religion, it's clear that she is proud to be Iranian, and the reoccurring presence of Iranian New Year's Eve parties are a lovely touch considering how little we see Middle Eastern culture in American cinema, particularly in a comedy.
Another thing that works about Appropriate Behaviour is that, despite Desiree's multiple sexual experiments and blunders, (including a painfully awkward attempt at a threesome with a Brooklyn hipster couple) and the flashbacks that comprise her relationship with ex Maxine, it's not necessarily a film about romance. There's no romantic subplot thrown in just for the sake of it, which is something that you could argue about Obvious Child - instead, it's all about Shireen. She may spend a lot of the film pining over her ex girlfriend and attempting to win her back, but in the end she finds her own kind of closure, and seems content on her own.
Though it does follow closely to the storyline and tropes of the female led hipster comedies of late, Appropriate Behaviour is smart enough to distinguish itself from the pack with some smart observations of sex, love, hipsters and ethnicity. This is a film that was born to do well on the festival circuit, but I'm also more than certain that it can break through to the mainstream and find an audience that are just as happy to laugh at and root for Shireen as they are for Hannah or Frances.
Grace Barber-Plentie
3.5/5
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