‘My Favourite Cake’ Review: A Romantic Confection That Rises Sweetly, Until It Crumbles
variety.comJessica Kiang How late is too late? It’s a question that besets Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) a 70-year-old retired nurse who sleeps late, whose late husband is late by 30 years, and who is beginning to wonder if her loneliness might become untenable as late-life gets later still.
But the question could also be asked of “My Favourite Cake” itself, which after leaning into Farhadpour’s ample charisma and the lovely, whimsical chemistry she strikes up with co-star Esmail Mehrabi, takes a strangely bitter turn in its home stretch, like a spongy confection whose dangerously high sucrose levels you are only just getting used to, when an unwelcome bit of grit chips a tooth.
The film’s writer-directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, are returning to the Berlin Competition after their “Ballad of a White Cow” played to quite some acclaim here in 2021.
Returning, that is, in spirit but not in person, as the Iranian authorities have banned them from travelling and instigated court proceedings against the film, for, among other things, its depiction of a Mahin without her hijab, as well as the scenes of her defying the morality police, and dancing and drinking wine with a man to whom she is not married.
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