THE STORY – Persian Lela and her sensual daughter June take a trip to the romantic Azores after loss – with opposite ideas about how to grieve, how to live, and tiny bikinis. A hot philosophical guide helps them find each other ~ coming back to life.
THE CAST – Ayden Mayeri, Amira Casar & José Condessa
THE TEAM – Lilian T. Mehrel (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 80 Minutes
American June (Ayden Mayeri) and her Persian-Kurdish mother, Lela (Amira Casar), are out of place at their hotel in the Azores. It seems everyone else who took advantage of the honeymoon special is actually honeymooning, or at least is very much in love with the person they’re there with. June and Lela, on the other hand, are there to pay their respects one year after the loss of their father/husband, who visited the island while mourning the death of his own father. While June, who graduated from medical school at the top of her class but recently quit her residency, wants to reconnect with herself, Lela wants to mourn and figure out how to live with this hole in her life (if not fill it completely). When their handsome tour guide, João (José Condessa), turns surprisingly philosophical on them, the women finally start to realize that what they need most is each other.
Lilian T. Mehrel’s feature debut as a writer/director has the intimate, personal feeling of an autobiographical portrait. The relationship between June and Lela feels raw and lived-in; Lela keeps attempting to cover June’s bare shoulders even though the hotel concierges are clearly more interested in mother than daughter, and their banter about social issues and technology usage is instantly familiar. The screenplay is littered with tiny character details that make the characters leap off the page, from the two leads to the supporting male players to the background couples at the hotel. Mehrel writes with as much humor as pathos and knows how to give each the right amount of breathing room so that the film feels equally funny and sad. The fact that, in a film about a family mourning the loss of their patriarch with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement going on the background, she manages to pull off not one, but two hilarious fart jokes, is a testament to her talents. A well-written screenplay doesn’t mean much if the actors can’t pull it off, though.
Thankfully, Mehrel proves herself to be a great director of actors, too. Even the smallest part has been cast with someone not only wildly charismatic but who perfectly understands the right tone for every line (António Maria as a DTF hotel concierge is a deadpan highlight). Condessa aches with soul as João, revealing new layers with every line. When June expresses joy that he must meet so many new people as a tour guide, and he responds that “every day is a new goodbye,” it catches you off-guard in the best way possible; it’s not just a line; he really means it, and it really hurts him on some level, getting to know all these people for a few hours only to say goodbye and never see them again.
Despite the well-written screenplay, it still takes great skill to navigate the tonal shifts of June and Lela’s relationship, and both women do superb work. Mayeri turns in a star-making performance by turns loosely funny, naturally sexy, and tenderly vulnerable. June doesn’t always say what she’s feeling, but Mayeri makes sure it’s always clear, sometimes in heartbreaking ways. Casar, meanwhile, finally gets to make good on her breathtakingly subtle, sensitive performance in “Call Me By Your Name” with a more fleshed-out role. Lela is a woman in crisis and unsure of how to move forward. Her husband had promised to take her to the Azores one day but never got the chance before cancer took him away, and Casar makes his absence palpable, constantly holding herself while wrapping a jacket or shawl around her and even asking June to hold her from behind in bed while falling asleep. Mehrel resists easy sentiment in her screenplay, so Casar does the same in her performance, making Lela’s prickliness come alive onscreen; you’re never quite sure whether she’s going to be open or closed off in each scene, but the actress’s magnetism draws you in to the tiniest details of her performance, and the slightest tilt of her head can shift the mood of a scene.
The scenery of the Azores provides a beautiful backdrop for the film, but Mehrel and cinematographer Inés Gowland don’t just rest on pretty landscapes. Any time they can illustrate the characters’ state of mind through images, they do, creating some impactful images in the process. That means that things do get a little heavy-handed at some points, like when the two women separately experience an awakening of sorts during a thunderstorm or when fog keeps them from seeing the famous Lagoa das Sete Cidades (twin lakes that look like they’re different colors). However, even in those moments, the film invites you to lean in and invest in the story and characters.
With everything going on in the film, it’s a bit surprising that Mehrel stumbles when it comes to the background subplot involving the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. It’s only natural that these two women would have deep, possibly conflicting feelings about it, but every time it comes up in conversation, it takes the film away from the delicate story of these women working through their grief. Connecting the movement to June and Lela’s situation makes sense can be done, but it needs more space to breathe than what Mehrel gives it here. It’s one element too many to include in a film with this slight of a runtime, and it’s sadly the one element of the film that feels underbaked as a result. Thankfully, every other element is just right, and even if it’s not the most complex confection, “Honeyjoon” still satisfies.
