How late is too late? It’s a question that besets Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) a 70-year-old retired nurse who sleeps late, whose late husband is late by 30 years, and who is beginning to wonder if her loneliness might become untenable as late-life gets later still. But the question could also be asked of “My Favourite Cake” itself, which after leaning into Farhadpour’s ample charisma and the lovely, whimsical chemistry she strikes up with co-star Esmail Mehrabi, takes a strangely bitter turn in its home stretch, like a spongy confection whose dangerously high sucrose levels you are only just getting used to, when an unwelcome bit of grit chips a tooth. 

The film’s writer-directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, are returning to the Berlin Competition after their “Ballad of a White Cow” played to quite some acclaim here in 2021. Returning, that is, in spirit but not in person, as the Iranian authorities have banned them from travelling and instigated court proceedings against the film, for, among other things, its depiction of a Mahin without her hijab, as well as the scenes of her defying the morality police, and dancing and drinking wine with a man to whom she is not married. Given that real-world context (a lot of the film had to be shot in secret) it is perhaps not surprising that Moghaddam and Sanaeeha might feel the need to remind audiences of the harsh realities of life for women under the nation’s increasingly repressive regime. It’s less clear whether structuring the film right up to that point as a gently absurdist, tipsy romance between two of the nicest unmarried septuagenarians in Tehran, provides the right framework from which to deliver such a sober message. 

Mahin, when we meet her, is preparing for one of her increasingly rare get-togethers with her girlfriends. Cinematographer Mohammad Haddadi’s tasteful, hospitable images complement Mahin’s tasteful, hospitable home as she and her friends gather around her dining table – which is laden with food and fresh fruit — and gossip like teenagers. Or not quite: while some chatter about the husbands they’ve outlived and others relate slightly scandalous stories of picking up new boyfriends, one energetically hypochondriac friend insists they all watch the DVD of her colonoscopy. Washing up alone later, having had a quick Facetime with her daughter who lives abroad, you can sense how empty and quiet Mahin’s neatly furnished little home feels without their bawdy company. 

Perhaps spurred on by her friends’ stories, Mahin resolves to try to meet a man, a decision which would not raise many eyebrows anywhere else, but in Tehran is tantamount to a radical act. First at the bakery, then at the local park and finally at a pensioners’ restaurant, Mahin embarks on an extremely genteel form of cruising, which is beautifully played by Farhadpour, allowing the character’s sense of mischief and self-aware daring to peek through her natural, and socially mandated, reserve. And so when almost the first eligible candidate she talks to — taxi driver Faramarz (Mehrabi) whom she spots at the restaurant and by chances hears is unmarried — turns out to be a pretty much her perfect match, the wish-fulfillment fantasy aspect of this unlikely encounter doesn’t even seem too contrived. There can be few characters drawn to be so lovably deserving of having their wishes fulfilled. Their night together — a hall-of-famer first date if ever there was one — progresses with comical rapidity from the getting-to-know-you awkwardness to professions of love to plans for the next day and that day after and all the days after that.

What it lacks in edge, the film certainly makes up for in the quality of its performances and watching Farhadpour and Mehrabi mutually glow off each other is a pleasure that it feels almost cruel to have so abruptly denied. But that final twist should have happened a lot earlier if the movie were making a bid for being a social thriller, or a lot later if it was meant as a more realistic, grounded drama, or not at all if it was designed to remain in the register of warmhearted rom-com. As it is, that solar-plexus kicker seems, narratively, to do to Mahin what the directors are so critical of their own society doing to women of her age and outlook: punishing her for daring to pursue a dream of happiness in a society where even if a woman may have her cake – in this case, a delicious looking orange-blossom sponge —  she will never get to eat it too.