The second—and far less controlled—Iranian drama in Cannes’ 2025 Competition lineup is Saeed Roustaee’s Woman and Child, a film that, unlike the Palme d’Or winner, throws it all out instead of letting its themes sneak up on you and build throughout. It has far fewer ambitions in terms of what it wants to say, trading thematic depth for sheer entertainment value, as it leans into soap opera twists and highly dramatic turns. That’s not to say it has nothing on its mind—but it works almost in the opposite direction of It Was Just an Accident. While that film used sharp humor and tonal shifts to bring levity to a dense, morally complex story of vengeance and justice, this one uses Iran’s legal system as the backdrop for a domestic chess match, where characters face off in escalating, almost Succession-style moves and countermoves.
It starts with Mahnaz, a widowed nurse raising two kids on her own: Aliyar, a hot-headed and deeply rebellious teenager, and Neda, a sweet and innocent younger daughter. Mahnaz is in a relationship with Hamid, an ambulance driver who pressures her to keep her children hidden from his conservative parents. That pressure leads to a tense situation where Mahnaz’s attempts to maintain peace backfire, pushing Aliyar to take one extreme action. What follows is a descent into tragedy that forces Mahnaz to seek justice—first through the courts, and then through far more personal means.
While the film touches on multiple themes—how Mahnaz, perhaps unknowingly, enables her son to become the very type of man she’s spent her life trying to avoid; the suffocating expectations placed on widows; even the transactional nature of arranged marriages—it truly comes alive when the drama kicks in. Everyone keeps reacting to the mess in front of them with bigger, bolder, and sometimes more desperate actions. And while that structure leans into the kind of pleasures you’d expect from a great soap opera, there’s no denying how well it works when done right.
Helping it land are the performances, which strike a smart balance between emotional realism and the operatic scale the script demands. Parinaz Izadyar is especially heartbreaking. She makes Mahnaz feel completely grounded in the early scenes, only to gradually reveal how far she might go when cornered. It’s a performance filled with grief, tension, and unrelenting drive—you’re never quite sure what she’ll do next, and that unpredictability gives the film much of its edge.
Woman and Child might not be the most thematically profound film you’ll see this year, but it’s certainly one of the most gripping. It’s intense, fast-moving, and unafraid of going big—too big, perhaps—but it never stops being watchable. In a landscape full of slow burns and subtle dramas, there’s something refreshing about a film that explores its themes while still just going for it.
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- Where to watch
- Not available for streaming
- Where to watch
- Rent or buy at Apple TV Store, Amazon Video
Play trailer
- Original title
- زن و بچه
- Director
- Saeed Roustaee
- Genre
- Drama
- Cast
- Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi, Soha Niasti, Sinan Mohebi, Hassan Pourshirazi, Fereshteh Sadr Orafaee, Rojin Shams, Maziar Seyedi
- Screenwriter
- Saeed Roustaee
- Composer
- Ramin Kousha
- Cinematography
- Adib Sobhani
- Editor
- Bahram Dehghani
- Country
- Language
- Persian