14 February 2021

Desiree Akhavan's Appropriate Behaviour (2015)

 

Appropriate Behaviour is Desiree Akhavan's dazzling first feature, in which Akhavan herself stars as a young bisexual Iranian-American Shirin trying to rebuild her life again in Brooklyn  after breaking up with with  Maxine (Rebecca Henderson).  She's also now homeless and jobless, although she has wealthy parents and finds no problem with accommodation and soon gets a job teaching very young kids in Slope Park how to make a movie.

The difficulties Shirin has are not only in establishing to herself who she is, but also to her parents who she is sexually, and after a very weak confession to her mother she's in denial. The poster above might indicate drug problems, but she's just in the toilet of a bar, surrounded by comments such as 'Brian is a stupid dick', 'Fuck you', 'Suck it', 'Kiss me', etc. She's just sitting on the toilet cover pissed off, but not pissed or anything worse.

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