AllMovie

Truly heartwarming without being saccharine, Under the Skin of the City provides a look at life in contemporary Tehran through the prism of one family's daily trials. Director Rakhshan Bani Etemad is unflinching in her portrayal of urban ills, including poverty, drugs, and, perhaps most surprisingly, prostitution. But she leavens the film's tragic moments with the gentle humor that arises from a loving, if cantankerous, family bound by a collective will to come through their troubles intact. Tuba holds her clan together with the no-nonsense tough love of many a movie matriarch. The stern queen of her domain at home, she nonetheless becomes giddy when surrounded by her family on a rare dinner out at a fancy pizza parlor. Like a number of other films that have emerged from Iran since the mid-'90s Under the Skin of the City illuminates yet another aspect of Iranian life rarely seen in the West with skill, wit, and a wealth of genuine emotion.