“My Favourite Cake is near perfection for its first three quarters, and the idea of finding love at the advanced age of 70 is tender, romantic and brilliant.”

Mahin (Lili Farhadpour) is a woman. She sleeps until late with her eye mask on to block out the light, dishes it with her boy’s crazy girlfriends while serving them canapés and tea, likes pretty dresses with sheer underskirts that peek out of long robes, and gets teary-eyed watching soap operas. She could be a twenty-something influencer on TikTok, if one went by character description alone. But Mahin is not a twenty-something; she is a seventy-year-old Iranian woman whose husband died decades ago and who is now a bit plump around the middle. She is also becoming invisible, to her children who live abroad and have created different lives for themselves, and to the world around her, through which she walks hidden under her abaya and head scarf.

One afternoon, between talk of what ailment affects the hypochondriac Pouran and which of the ladies wear diapers to bed, one of the more sensual members of her group of girlfriends (a group with which Mahin probably shares half a century of history) begins to talk about men, about opening up new horizons and noticing the opposite sex. Mahin is intrigued and begins experimenting by going to coffee shops — which in Tehran have more in common with a mortuary — sitting in parks, and finally sitting down for a meal in a restaurant for retired people, at which she can use her senior citizen coupons.

There she spots a single, elderly taxi driver, who sits on his own enjoying his meal. Faramarz (Esmaeel Mehrabi) is kind looking, handsome, and sports a full moustache. He is oblivious to the presence of Mahin, whose eye he has caught. When she follows him from the restaurant to the taxi stand where he works, a beautiful friendship is born. They spend a night at Mahin’s cosy home, chatting, drinking homemade wine, dancing and flirting, each reconnecting with the person they were in their youth. A youth which was spent in a country very different from the one they live in today — the Iran of, as Mahin calls it, “low-cut blouses and high heels,” not sneakers under hijabs and the constant pestering of the religious police.

Throughout their film, directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha have planted digs and pot-shots at the Iranian government, along with words of caution, which helps explain why Iran’s authorities have banned the couple from travelling, thus making it impossible for them to present their film in Competition. Furthermore, they are facing trial. This has led to an official statement from the Berlinale bannered “Call for Freedom Of Movement, Freedom Of Expression for Competition Directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha”, in which they called upon the Iranian government to release the pair from their travel ban, sadly without result.

While the points Moghaddam and Sanaeeha make in My Favourite Cake are valid and important, and the film is charming, beautifully shot and acted to perfection, its final quarter feels rushed, as if the ending wasn’t really worked out all the way through and perhaps added as a last resort. A shame, as My Favourite Cake is near perfection for its first three quarters, and the idea of finding love at the advanced age of 70 is tender, romantic and brilliant, and had yours truly in tears at one point out of sheer joy for the protagonists.

Image copyright: Hamid Janipour