The Hangover in the Morning

When Mahbube falls head over heels in love with a young carpenter, she listens only to her heart. For him she leaves behind her family, wealth and status and follows her emotions. But soon she is forced to realise that those emotions have betrayed her, that she is not equipped to deal with the conditions of this marriage, the everyday life of a carpenter’s wife. The prodigal daughter returns to her family, hoping that she hasn’t gambled away her chance for love and happiness…

In Persia they say that »marriages between cousins are made in heaven.« Teheran, in the early 1930s. After confident Mahbube refused the hand of a princess‘ son at age fifteen, she also refuses her cousin, who is in love with her. Why? The girl has fallen for a young carpenter and insist on her choice. Relcutantly, her father brings himself to give in to her wishes. But Mahbube’s passion isn’t great enough for this marriage and all that it entails. The young woman can’t resign herself to poverty and hurtful behaviour. She returns to the fold – to become the second wife to the cousin she denied before. Now, as the »mistress of the night«, she learns to love him, but she doesn’t have him to herself. All that she attains is a happiness that hurts. In present-day Teheran, an aged Mahbube tells her niece, who also has her mind set on marrying an »inappropriate« man, about her life: »The wine at night is not worth the hangover in the morning.«

»Seemingly en passant, we got to know the great Persian cuisine, learnt much about the world of Iranian women and longed for the old Persian houses with their fountains, lattices of vines and spacious tiled courtyards.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung