Hier ohne mich

Here Without Me is a free adaptation of Tenessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. The writer-director Bahram Tavakoli has skilfully & successfully changed the setting to Iran. The characters though are unmistakably Williamsian: dreamers trying to escape from the harsh realities of life. The mother (Fatemeh Motamed-Aria) dreams of finding a husband for her crippled daughter (Negar Javaherian). Her son, & the main breadwinner in the family (Saber Abar) hates his job in a warehouse & really wants to be a poet. He spends most of his free time at the movies. When, at his mother's behest, he invites his best mate (Parsa Pirouzfar) to dinner at their house, it appears that a suitor may have been found for his sister.

Here Without Me showcases an acting master class. All the actors are excellent but the two female leads are outstanding (Motamed-Aria won the best actress award at Montreal Film Festival). Though it is difficult to escape the film's theatrical origins, on the whole this is a very successful adaptation which compares favorably with the best Hollywood adaptations of Williams's works. Recommended.