Cannes Review: Saeed Roustaee’s ‘Leila’s Brothers’

deadline.com:

They all hate each other, Leila (the magnificent Taraneh Alidoosti) tells her brother Alireza (Navid Mohammad Zadeh) when he returns to the family home.

It is a rare visit; he works in an industrial plant somewhere on the other side of Iran. He isn’t going to tell his family that he has been laid off with the promise of pay that has never materialized; in the Tehran family that crowds Saeed Roustaee’s long and absorbing clan drama Leila’s Brothers, he is supposed to be the properly functioning son.What can you say about the other three brothers in this Cannes competition film?

There is Manouchehr (Payman Maadi) who, as they all like to say, thinks with his pectorals. Parvis (Farhad Aslani) is very fat and a heavy drinker; they all expect him to die any day, although he does seem to keep fathering children successfully.

Farhad (Mohammad Ali Mohammadi) is a shyster who could barely lie straight in bed, which may have something to do with why his wife is divorcing him, taking half their flat with her and effectively leaving him homeless.