Shayda [Review]
Shayda depicts a woman struggling against her community when she decides to leave her abusive husband.
Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Selina Zahednia. Image credit: Sony Picture Classics
Iranian-Australian director Noora Niasari’s debut feature Shayda premiered in the Sundance Film Festival in 2023 and was Australia’s submission for Best International Feature for this year’s Oscars. The film is based on Niasari’s own experiences as a child.
The film follows Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), an Iranian woman in Australia, who is living in a women’s shelter with her 6 year-old daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia). Shayda does her best to create normalcy for her daughter while hiding from her abusive husband Hossein (Osamah Sami). As she prepares her petition for divorce and child custody, a judge grants Hossein weekly unsupervised visitation with Mona. Now Shayda is forced to come face to face with her abuser and must grapple with her fear that he will kidnap their daughter and take her back to Iran.
The film opens boldly with a stressful scene where director and writer Niasari puts us straight into Shayda’s emotional space and shows the gravity of the situation. She and Joyce (Leah Purcell), the head of the women’s shelter, are in an airport teaching young Mona that if her father brings her there, she must run to a guard and give them her name. With this harrowing scene, the film immediately and urgently establishes the stakes of the drama. I was hooked and immediately felt sympathy for Shayda.
Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Selina Zahednia. Image credit: Sony Picture Classics
Though overall the film is predictable, it’s moments like this that shine. Later in the film, Shayda goes to an Iranian market to buy ingredients in disguise, terrified that a more traditional member of the Iranian community will recognize her and report to her husband. Out of a combined desire for being a good mother and personal freedom, she continues to venture out. Is someone looking at her because they recognize her and judge her due to the stigma of rumors, or was it just a casual glance? It’s in these scenes with a greater sense of suspense or urgency, were Shayda faces her fears or finds herself in danger, that the film is at its best.
Otherwise, Shayda is a competent domestic drama, driven forward by the strength of its performances. Ebrahimi and young Zahednia have an easy rapport as mother and daughter. Ebrahimi changes completely when performing against Sami, her soon to be ex-husband; these scenes are tense and off-putting.
The most interesting thing about the movie for me is its cultural background, how Shayda is steeped in her community as an Iranian expat and with their view of Shayda’s role as a woman. We see Shayda deal with the stigma of leaving her husband, to whom she “belongs” through marriage, despite living in a secular society where women have autonomy. Even her mother, on the phone from home, suggests Shayda should forget about her violent incidents with Hossein and drop the divorce. A scene where an Iranian interpreter on the phone judges Shayda’s statements and won’t translate them faithfully drives home how hard it is to be in her shoes.
Shayda may not be groundbreaking, but it’s a compelling movie for how it depicts the protagonist’s situation in a cultural context. The film is currently in a limited theatrical release from Sony Pictures Classics.
