Sightlines · reception

How About Elly was received

2009 · Asghar Farhadi · About Elly on Sightlines

The arc

A Silver Bear winner at Berlin in 2009, it then sat in US distribution limbo for six years and only got a proper American release in 2015 — riding the wave of A Separation's Oscar — where critics greeted it as a belated masterpiece.

What’s debated

The evergreen Farhadi-heads debate: is About Elly actually better than A Separation?

Its footprint

It's the ultimate word-of-mouth recommendation — the film critics kept comparing to Antonioni's L'Avventura, and the one people press on friends who think they've already seen Farhadi's best.

Where it stands

A canon climber and Letterboxd darling — the 'deep cut' Farhadi pick that's no longer really a deep cut.

Did you know? It won Farhadi the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2009 Berlinale and Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca the same year — yet didn't open theatrically in the US until 2015.