This offbeat comedy from Iran has a sweet and sour taste, as we follow one complicated day in the life of a young woman planning to be married and an arguing couple she works for as a maid.

Morteza calls a maid service that sends Rouhi to his home to help his wife Mojdeh, as they prepare for a family vacation with their young son. The apartment is a mess, with broken glass strewn about from a window that Morteza smashed during an argument the night before.

When Mojdeh comes home she is obviously upset as she pays Rouhi and asks her to leave, even though the place is far from tidy. But Mojdeh changes her mind when she realizes that she can use Rouhi as a spy, under the guise of having her eyebrows worked on by Mojdeh’s neighbor for her upcoming wedding. You see Mojdeh has a problem.

Morteza loves his job, or so he says, and that results in him constantly leaving the house at all times of the day and night. Mojdeh suspects that Morteza is having an affair with Simine, the neighbor and the woman that runs a beauty salon out of her apartment on the same floor. Mojdeh even listens at the air vents, trying to hear her husband’s voice at Simine’s

The complexity of the situation unfolds as Rouhi finds herself right in the middle of domestic upheaval. It’s clear that she is considering what married life might hold for her.

Later, Morteza goes into a rage when he sees Mojdeh on the street approaching his office. He not only confronts her, but he beats her in public.

Throughout the film there are bursts of fireworks, sometimes hitting close to home, and often sounding like gunfire. People are beginning to celebrate the New Year. This background of sound offers metaphor for what is going on between the three principle characters. On this day sparks do fly.

Lies and apologies carry the day, but only for so long. The insight into middle class life in Iran is sometimes funny, at other times disturbing and in the end enlightening as to how even in very different cultures, the basics of what is fundamentally important to us remains the same.