Universal Language - Film Review

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Directed by Matthew Rankin, and with Story and Screenplay by Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, Illa Firouzabadi, Universal Language is 89 mins long and stars Rojina Esmaeili as Negin, Saba Vahedyousefi as Negin's sister Nazgol, Sobhan Javadi as Omid - fellow student of Negin, Pirouz Nemati as Massoud the tour-guide, Matthew Rankin as Matthew who travels to Winnipeg to visit his mother, Mani Soleymanlou as Iraj Bilodeau - a teacher at a French Immersion school, and Baharan BaniAhmadi as Miss Zardooz - Nazgol's teacher. With an accolade of Awards and Nominations, it's Canada's official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2025 97th Oscars ae and was shortlisted. It'll be in cinemas on 22 May 2025.

An absurdist comedy, the film is set in a surreal interzone between Tehran (Iran) and Winnipeg (Canada) where a kaleidoscope of encounters are in play. There are three stories intersecting, and the stories are spattered with eccentric characters. It begins with a French Immersion School, where the teacher is hard on his students and secretly finds them repugnant. Omid, one of the students, has lost his glasses to a turkey, and fellow student Negin is intent on buying him new ones to help him, when she discovers money (500 Riels) frozen in the snow. She gets her sister, Nazgol, to help her. They are sent on a wild goose chase to get an axe to break the ice by Massoud, who is a part-time tour guide who guides confused tourists through Winnipeg's offbeat architectural wonders. This journey is about him as well, as it is about Matthew, who quits his job in Qu e9bec and embarks on a cryptic journey to find his mother, or perhaps himself.


An absurdist comedy may not be everyone's favourite form of comedy, and many may not find much to laugh about in the film, unless your sense of humour runs in that vein and you find the worst expression of humanity funny, and love things on the weird side. There are a few references that the audience may not get, like the park benches. I did think the picture of a real estate agent on a park bench looked a little like Rod Stewart, the singer. It turns out these benches are all over Winnipeg, and in the film, a real anchor as to where the film is shot - with the real estate Rod Peeler's image on it, and his catchphrase is - "I never sleep".

Then there's the briefcase on yet another park bench - one tour guide, Massoud, takes the tourist to and refers to as a 'monument of absolute inter-human solidarity'. It was typical of a Massoud tour, which never quite made sense to the confused and disoriented tourists who went on it. The suitcase on the bench scene was inspired by the director who forgot his bag and left it sitting on a park bench while waiting for a train. Hours later, expecting it to be lost to him, he was moved to find his bag was exactly where he had left it. So moved, in the film, it was exaggerated to absolute absurdity. For me, initially, I was a little lost as I began to watch the film, and wondered where the story was going as it moved from one story to another, at times going back and forth in time, until it started to knit together in a rather clever manner. The quotes on the Wonderfilm website will give you an inkling and feel of the movie as quoted by others, and you'll learn that Agha is a term of respect.


The way these disparate stories cross paths is cleverly written, and genuinely surprising and unpredictable. There are moments of visual humour with a turkey taking a paid seat on a bus and sitting next to an elderly woman who has had enough of the gobbling, because it's not as if she's not had a hard enough life. But this turkey is a prize winner and the bus driver reckons she's lucky to be sitting next to such a splendid bird that belongs to a famous turkey breeder. Universal Language is filled with these odd characters, and odd conversations, and odd moments with a man who sings to his turkeys, and a turkey wrestle that saves a pair of glasses. Let's not forget the woman who saves tears and a Bingo game with an end prize of boxes of Kleenex tissues, and a walking Christmas tree and face-swapped characters that simply feel like they fit into this strange world.

In spite of all its oddities, there are warm and familiar moments about friends trying to help a friend, a neighbour taking care of someone else's ailing mother, and a repeating song that's pretty easy on the ear in this off-kilter satire that's undeniably an original. However, it may not be everybody's cup of tea. The comedy may deliver the desired punch for some, but for others, it may fall flat. Jumping from one moment to another, one doesn't really feel attached to any particular character or story. I simply felt a little puzzled to start with, and more like an observer waiting to see what happens next, rather than one invested in the overall plot. Especially in a surprise twist (sorry, you'll have to see the movie - no spoiler here), that just made me go 'gulp' - 'whatha!' You'll know the moment! To each their own, and you may have a totally different reaction, so you'll just have to watch it to find out what it was about this movie that won so many accolades.




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