Themes: Faltering Friendships, Class Differences, Innocence Lost
Main Cast: Mariam Parris, Shaun Toub, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Release Year: 2000
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
Ramin Serry explores such issues as global politics, ideological conflict, and puberty in this coming-of-age film about being an Iranian-American teenager during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Maryam (Mariam Parris) longs to be just a normal New Jersey 16-year-old, but her traditionalist father Darius (Shaun Toub) keeps her on a short rein. Maryam's modest goal is further hampered when her Iranian cousin Ali (David Ackert) comes to stay with them. Though Ali's stridently fundamentalist views represent all that Maryam has come to resent, the two gradually form a friendship of sorts. Meanwhile, Ali's vehement anti-Shah beliefs, coupled with his knowledge of a dark family secret, creates tension between himself and Darius. At the same time, Maryam notices a change in her neighbors' reactions toward her family as the conflict in Iran grows ever more ugly. This film was screened at the 2000 L.A. Independent Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review
Adolescent struggles are a common topic in film, handled with various levels of success. Add in a teenager of Iranian descent, caught in the strange position of trying to assimilate to the only culture she's ever known, and Ramin Serry's Maryam becomes a thoughtful and provocative film. Newcomer Mariam Parris is brilliant in the title role, clearly hurt by the taunts of the popular girls, who make cruel remarks that she "needs to shave," mostly because they are threatened by her appeal to a cute classmate. But the strength of Parris' performance is the casual air with which she deflects these comments. And the complexity of the performance is that, like many ill-treated minorities, she has internalized a certain amount of self-loathing. When her strict father (Shaun Toub) picks her up from an after-school activity, interrupting the event in his old-world, humorless manner, she mocks his too-Iranian ways in a fashion that goes beyond the usual embarrassment a child feels toward a parent. Maryam proves herself a smart young woman as the film progresses, maturely addressing the festering issues in her family's history and the growing distrust of her schoolmates and neighbors. The film occasionally feels a bit like an after-school special, but Serry, himself Iranian-American, explores a fascinating crisis point in U.S. history from a unique perspective, and the characters are rendered with sensitivity, so that even the bullies' foibles are understandably human. The subject matter made Maryam a hard sell to distributors, but audiences able to seek it out at festivals or in other contexts will be richly rewarded. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
The word 'Maryam' is the Aramaic name of Mary, the mother of Jesus and means the same in Persian language. Maryam also means Tuberose in Persian and is a common first name in Iran.
