Behnam Behzadi’s film is a sombre, subdued family drama set in Tehran about the insidious patriarchal forces that conspire, almost without entirely knowing it and certainly without admitting it, against independent-minded women. It is a misogynist oppression as all-pervasive as the smog that settles everywhere on the city.

Toxic air puts an elderly woman in hospital with doctor’s orders to leave the city for cleaner climes. Someone must move north with her, and her family soon decide that her unmarried, childless daughter Niloofar (Sahar Dolatshahi) will be the one to go. Niloofar, a smart, attractive hardworking woman who has made a success of her tailoring business, is never consulted. With fascinating insights into everyday life in Tehran, the film portrays the ‘inversion” of a woman, and her mutiny against male domination.