AllMovie

The uneasy relationship between a mother and daughter is made all the more turbulent by drug abuse in this downbeat drama from Iranian filmmakers Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab. Sara (Baran Kosari) is a woman in her early twenties who is living with her mother, Sima (Bita Farahi), in Tehran. While they clearly love one another, Sara and Sima rarely see eye to eye, and the fact they're sharing an apartment as Sara waits for her boyfriend to return from Canada (where he's attending college) for their upcoming wedding isn't helping at all. Sara has a history of drug abuse, and Sima realizes that her daughter has given up on methadone treatment and has begun using heroin again. Determined to see her daughter clean and sober in time for her wedding, Sima packs up Sara to take her to a treatment center near the Caspian Sea, but Sara fights her every step of the way and the journey becomes a painful experience for mother and daughter. Along the way, they pay a visit to Sara's father and Sima's former husband (Masoud Rayegan), offering a clue to the source of the family's tensions. Mainline (aka Khoon Bazi) received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.