The opening scene of Appropriate Behavior sees our hero packing up a cardboard box as she prepares to move out of her girlfriend’s apartment. The ex-girlfriend insists that she takes something with her. She protests that it was a gift, the Ex says she doesn’t want it. It turns out to be a strap-on dildo. No lesbian home should be without, eh?
Our hero is an Iranian bisexual who never says quite the right thing to her gay lover. When they first met, she called her a dyke and she makes reference to her strong masculine features from time to time. And yet she is still shocked when the relationship takes a turn for the worse. Being a broken hearted lesbian is only the tip of her iceberg of problems. She has no job, no place to live, and her family is prim and proper and refused to see that she is gay. As the film moves forward, we watch her get a place to live, take a new job, and have the most awkward threesome in history.
Appropriate Behavior feels like a really long film. It drags on as we watch Shirin stalk her old lover, deal with a bunch of children, and buy herself a bra, even though she has very small breasts and feels she doesn’t need one. This film has been compared to Lena Dunham’s Girls, as it is self obsessed and NY obsessed. It took me about half a season to get to where I liked Girls, and I can’t find much to like here in the time given. Too much of the film deals with being gay and being Persain when neither one of those things explains the fact that our hero is a nitwit.
There is a lot jumping around in time, as everything Shirin does reminds her of some time with her Ex and we flash back to that time at the bookstore or at a birthday party or at her parent’s house. I found Appropriate Behavior to be a bit depressing and found its humor to be more cringe worthy than laugh inducing. But then, I don’t think Girls is all that funny either.
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