65
Metascore
24 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumHere, love and attraction between two teenage girls put them on a collision course with Tehran society in general and one girl's troubled, increasingly religious brother in particular.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterJames GreenbergThe Hollywood ReporterJames GreenbergOverall this is an impressive debut from a filmmaker with something to say and the talent to say it.
- 70The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottThough it lacks the artful, headlong immediacy of "The Circle" and "Offside," Jafar Panahi's films about women in Tehran - and the breakneck exuberance of Bahman Ghobadi's "No One Knows About Persian Cats," about Tehran's underground music scene - Circumstance ripples with the indignant energy of youthful rebellion.
- 70Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonWall Street JournalJohn AndersonThis is a movie about longing, desire, desperation and the abandonment of principle - quite a collection of themes, all universal.
- 67The A.V. ClubSam AdamsThe A.V. ClubSam AdamsPerhaps it's unfair to compare Circumstance to the very different "Persepolis," but it's hard not to drift off to Marjane Satrapi's more pungent and personally inflected evocation of the same terrain, in which the characters are as vivid as their surroundings.
- 60NPRMark JenkinsNPRMark JenkinsCircumstance is best during its simpler, more naturalistic moments. In one, Mehran rebuffs a junkie who stumbles into the mosque, only to see that an Islamic hardliner is more compassionate.
- 60New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNew York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierKeshavarz's vision is clear and heartfelt, and everyone has an urgency in their eyes.
- 50Slant MagazineNick SchagerSlant MagazineNick SchagerSince Mehran's embrace of hardline Islam is never dramatized or elaborated on in any insightful way.
- 50Village VoiceMelissa AndersonVillage VoiceMelissa AndersonKeshavarz's earnest, well-intentioned first feature on women's oppression in Iran has trouble resisting its own heavy hand.
- 40Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearThe closer this parable inches toward tragedy, the more you can feel the gap between good intentions and generic exotica-grandstanding widening into an unbridgeable chasm.