comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
set in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, which premiered on 18 January 2014 at the
2014 Sundance Film Festival
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opened with '' Whiplash'' directed by D ...
. Written and directed by
Desiree Akhavan
Desiree Akhavan (born December 27, 1984) is an American filmmaker, writer and actress. She is best known for her 2014 feature film debut '' Appropriate Behavior'',bisexualPersian American woman in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
struggling to rebuild her life after breaking up with her girlfriend Maxine ( Rebecca Henderson).
The film's cast also includes Scott Adsit,
Halley Feiffer
Halley Feiffer (born November 20, 1984) is an American actress and playwright.
Early life and education
Feiffer was raised in a Jewish family, the daughter of famed satirist and cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and writer, actor, and comedian Jenny Alle ...
,
Anh Duong
Anh Duong (born 25 October 1960) is a French-American artist, actress, and model. She is known for her self-portraits, which she has compared to a visual diary, as well as portraits of significant art collectors and influencers.
Early life
D ...
, Hooman Majd,
Arian Moayed
Arian Moayed ( fa, آرین مؤید, born April 15, 1980) is an Iranian-American actor, writer, and director. Moayed received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in ''Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo'' a ...
and
Aimee Mullins
Aimee Mullins is an American athlete, actress, and public speaker. She was born with a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs beneath the knee. She is the first amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in N ...
. The film had a theatrical release on 16 January 2015 in the US and was released on 6 March 2015 in the UK.
Plot
Brooklynite Shirin, the daughter of well-off Persian immigrants, is left homeless and jobless after her girlfriend Maxine breaks up with her. With the encouragement of her friend Crystal she moves in with strange roommates and gets a new job teaching 5 year old
Park Slope
Park Slope is a neighborhood in northwestern Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush A ...
children the art of movie making.
Shirin's parents are confused as to why Shirin moved out of her old apartment as Shirin has never told them that she's bisexual and dating a woman. Determined to get her life back on track, Shirin begins trying to follow Maxine, hoping to rekindle their relationship. Maxine begins dating Tibet, a fellow teacher at the
Park Slope
Park Slope is a neighborhood in northwestern Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush A ...
school where she works. Shirin devotes herself to her work and comes out to her brother, who is mostly supportive, and her mother, who is in denial.
On the subway, Shirin tells Crystal that she again plans to bring up the issue of her sexuality with her mother in a month. She sees Maxine outside the subway car on the platform and the two women wave to one another.
Cast
*
Desiree Akhavan
Desiree Akhavan (born December 27, 1984) is an American filmmaker, writer and actress. She is best known for her 2014 feature film debut '' Appropriate Behavior'',Scott Adsit as Ken
* Rebecca Henderson as Maxine
*
Halley Feiffer
Halley Feiffer (born November 20, 1984) is an American actress and playwright.
Early life and education
Feiffer was raised in a Jewish family, the daughter of famed satirist and cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and writer, actor, and comedian Jenny Alle ...
as Crystal
*
Anh Duong
Anh Duong (born 25 October 1960) is a French-American artist, actress, and model. She is known for her self-portraits, which she has compared to a visual diary, as well as portraits of significant art collectors and influencers.
Early life
D ...
as Nasrin
*
Hooman Majd
Hooman Majd (born 1957) is an Iranian-born American journalist, author, and political commentator who writes on Iranian affairs. He is based in New York City, and regularly travels to Iran.
Early life
Hooman Majd was born in 1957 in Tehran, Ira ...
as Mehrdad
*
Arian Moayed
Arian Moayed ( fa, آرین مؤید, born April 15, 1980) is an Iranian-American actor, writer, and director. Moayed received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in ''Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo'' a ...
as Ali
*
Aimee Mullins
Aimee Mullins is an American athlete, actress, and public speaker. She was born with a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs beneath the knee. She is the first amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in N ...
as Sasha
*
Justine Cotsonas
Justine Cotsonas (born May 31, 1985) is an American actress. She was born in Mineola, New York.
Cotsonas attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a BFA degree in January 2007. She joined the cast of ''As the Worl ...
as Layli
*Ryan Fitzsimmons as Brendan
Reception
Review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reports a 95% approval rating based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Warm, funny, and quietly profound, ''Appropriate Behavior'' serves as a thoroughly compelling calling card for writer, director, and star Desiree Akhavan." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a
weighted mean
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film holds an average score of '73', based on 19 reviews, indicating a 'generally favorable' response.
David Rooney in his review for ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...
'' praised the film by saying that "The promise of fresh cultural perspectives gives way to a more amorphous slice of contemporary romantic angst comedy." Ryan Gilbey wrote in the ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British Political magazine, political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney Webb, Sidney and Beatrice ...
'' that Akhavan is "a whiz (sic) at writing characters whose life seems to extend beyond their brief screentime." Katie Walsh of ''
Indiewire
IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...
'' gave the film a grade of B+, saying that "Funny, unique, and entirely inappropriate, ''Appropriate Behavior'' is a supremely satisfying and irreverent take on the New York
rom-com
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...