About Elly (2009)
Year: 2015
Runtime: 1 h 59 m
Language: english
Director: Asghar Farhadi
During a seaside getaway for a group of Tehran's elite, Sepideh tries to set up her daughter’s teacher, Elly, with Ahmad, a recently divorced man living abroad. As the weekend progresses, hidden truths and desires come to light, creating tension and blurring the boundaries of friendship and attraction. The carefully constructed facade of their lives is threatened as secrets emerge, leading to unexpected consequences and a complex web of relationships.
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About Elly (2009) (2015) – Full Plot Summary & Ending Explained
Read the complete plot breakdown of About Elly (2009) (2015), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.
As the sun gracefully sets over the Caspian Sea, a close-knit group of Iranian friends gathers for a three-day retreat orchestrated by Sepideh. Alongside her husband, Amir, their inquisitive daughter, and Shohreh with her family, including their lively son Arash, they converge at a seaside mansion. Sepideh has a specific aim for this gathering: to reunite her friend [Ahmad], who is visiting from Germany, with the young kindergarten teacher, Elly.
Upon their arrival, the group meets the mysterious caretaker of the property, who offers an alternative: a secluded beachfront villa. Ever the orchestrator, Sepideh spins a tale about Elly and Ahmad being a couple on their honeymoon, cleverly manipulating the situation to her advantage.
Initially reluctant, Elly gradually begins to embrace Ahmad’s affections. During a conversation with her mother, she fabricates an elaborate excuse for her trip, claiming it is a work retreat, while assuring her that she will return to Tehran soon. Meanwhile, Sepideh harbors her own secrets, including hiding Elly’s luggage before sneaking off for a personal errand.
Tension mounts when Arash disappears while swimming, and Elly has gone missing as well. Frantic, the group calls for help, igniting a storm of accusations and uncertainty that threatens to tear them apart. Doubts arise: has Elly suffered a tragic fate, or did she slip away unnoticed? The escalating fear and collective guilt create an atmosphere that simmers, revealing deep cracks in their seemingly peaceful getaway.
As the retreat progresses, a veil of deceit starts to lift, exposing Sepideh’s concealment of a vital truth from Elly. It is revealed that Elly was already engaged to Alireza, but her hesitance to commit pushed Sepideh to arrange this trip in hopes of introducing her to Ahmad. Although Elly initially hesitates, the pressure from Sepideh compels her to join the getaway.
Just as they begin to settle in, tensions escalate with the unexpected arrival of Alireza, who confronts Ahmad in a fit of rage. Amidst the chaos, he queries Sepideh about Elly’s acceptance of the trip, forcing her into a moral quandary between loyalty and honesty. As she chooses to uphold the ruse for fear of Alireza’s wrath, a horrific revelation occurs in the water.
In a devastating twist of fate, Alireza discovers Elly’s lifeless body at the mortuary, his heart shattered as he mourns the loss, tears cascading down his cheeks. The peaceful vacation spirals into a nightmare, forever altering the lives of those who believed they were simply gathering for a joyful reunion under the sun.
Last Updated: November 17, 2024 at 17:52
Explore Movie Threads
Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.
Tense ensemble dramas in idyllic settings like About Elly (2009)
Movies where a relaxing vacation becomes a crucible of hidden tensions and tragedy.Discover movies like About Elly where a group's peaceful vacation shatters under the weight of secrets. This thread gathers similar dramatic thrillers and ensemble stories where an idyllic location becomes a pressure cooker, revealing hidden truths and testing relationships under the sun.
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A Perfect Getaway
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Narrative Summary
Stories often begin with a group of friends or family arriving at a seemingly perfect holiday location. The initial mood is light, focused on leisure and bonding. A catalyst event—often a disappearance, an accident, or the arrival of an outsider—disrupts the calm, exposing lies, illicit desires, and collective anxieties. The narrative tension builds from the characters' attempts to maintain their social facades while scrambling to contain the escalating crisis.
Why These Movies?
These films are grouped by their powerful use of setting as both a promise and a threat. They share a specific dramatic structure: a deceptive calm followed by a rapid, irreversible descent into chaos. The shared mood is one of claustrophobic tension, moral unease, and the tragic unraveling of carefully constructed lives against a beautiful, indifferent backdrop.
Movies about collective guilt and spiraling lies like About Elly (2009)
Stories where a single event forces a group to weave a web of compounding lies.If you liked the tension in About Elly from the group's cover-up, explore similar movies about collective guilt. These films feature ordinary people making a disastrous choice and then getting trapped in a spiral of lies, leading to heavy moral dilemmas and tragic consequences.
Narrative Summary
The plot is triggered by a pivotal incident—an accident, a death, or a crime—that the group feels compelled to hide, often to protect their reputations or a member. The initial lie seems manageable, but each attempt to shore it up creates new complications, breeding paranoia and mutual suspicion. The narrative drive comes from watching the lie spin out of control, ratcheting up the tension until the truth can no longer be contained.
Why These Movies?
These films are connected by their exploration of a specific moral and narrative pattern: the domino effect of a single lie. They share a high-tone, anxious mood as characters become prisoners of their own fabrication. The experience is defined by a sense of claustrophobia, the heavy weight of guilt, and a bleak, often tragic, examination of how group dynamics can facilitate ethical collapse.
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Characters, Settings & Themes in About Elly (2009)
Discover the characters, locations, and core themes that shape About Elly (2009). Get insights into symbolic elements, setting significance, and deeper narrative meaning — ideal for thematic analysis and movie breakdowns.
