Universal Language (2024 film)
2024 Canadian comedy-drama film
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Universal Language (French: Une langue universelle, Persian: آواز بوقلمون, romanized: Āvāz-e bughalamun, lit. 'The voice/song of a turkey'[3]) is a 2024 Canadian absurdist comedy-drama film, co-written and directed by Matthew Rankin.[4]
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Pirouz Nemati
Matthew Rankin
| Universal Language | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| French | Une langue universelle |
| Persian | آواز بوقلمون |
| Directed by | Matthew Rankin |
| Written by | Ila Firouzabadi Pirouz Nemati Matthew Rankin |
| Produced by | Sylvain Corbeil |
| Starring | Rojina Esmaeili Saba Vahedyousefi Sobhan Javadi Pirouz Nemati Mani Soleymanlou Danielle Fichaud |
| Cinematography | Isabelle Stachtchenko |
| Edited by | Xi Feng |
| Music by | Amir Amiri Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux |
Production company | Metafilms |
| Distributed by | Maison 4:3 |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 89 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Languages | French Persian |
| Budget | <$3.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $768,297[2] |
It received positive reviews from critics and was named one of the top 5 international films of 2024 by the National Board of Review.[5] The film was selected as the Canadian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.[6] It had a limited release on February 25, 2025, through Oscilloscope Laboratories.[7]
Plot
The film is set in an alternate reality in which Persian, rather than English, is the dominant language of Canada, although it remains in coexistence with French.
Described as a "surreal comedy of disorientation" set "somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg", the film blends the initially unrelated, but gradually converging, stories of Negin (Rojina Esmaeili) and Nazgol (Saba Vahedyousefi), who find money frozen in ice and try to claim it; Massoud (Pirouz Nemati), a tour guide in Winnipeg who is leading a confused and disoriented tour group; and Matthew (Rankin), who quits his unfulfilling job with the government of Quebec and travels home to Winnipeg to visit his mother.[3]
Cast
- Rojina Esmaeili as Negin
- Saba Vahedyousefi as Nazgol
- Sobhan Javadi as Omid
- Pirouz Nemati as Massoud
- Mani Soleymanlou as Iraj Bilodeau
- Danielle Fichaud as Monsieur Castonguay
- Matthew Rankin as Matthew
- Denis Houle as Jean Suissûr
- Annie St-Pierre as Jeanne and Réjeanne Suissûr
- Asinnajaq as Knitter
Release
The film had its world premiere in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2024,[8][9] and had its North American premiere at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival.[10]
It also screened as the opening film of the 2024 Festival du nouveau cinéma,[11] in the Currents section of the 62nd New York Film Festival,[12] and the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024 under the World Cinema section, where it was screened together with An Urban Allegory by Alice Rohrwacher and JR.[13]
It had a limited release in the United States on February 25, 2025, through Oscilloscope Laboratories.[7]
Universal Language was selected as Canada's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. Rankin stated that it was the first film from Winnipeg to compete at the Academy Awards since La Salla in 1996. It made the shortlist of 15 films, but was not one of the five films selected as finalists.[14]
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 46 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Bridging two nations with a clever and surreal conceit, Universal Language is a culture clash comedy brimming with wisdom."[15]
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[16]
Fionnuala Halligan of Screen Daily wrote: "Universal Language is doggedly eccentric, something that’s mirrored in its exaggerated aesthetic. There’s a pink cowboy-hatted singing turkey-shop worker; a man wandering around wearing a lit Christmas tree over his body; an absurdist bingo hall where men and women are interchangeable. Inside a pharmacy, all the labels are a generic Adam Stockhausen tribute — only they're beige. There’s also a 'Kleenex repository' and reference made to a 'Winnipeg Earmuff Authority'. Sad-eyed characters say things like: 'My son choked to death in a marshmallow-eating contest,' or 'she was flattened in a steamrolling accident'. You could call it whimsical. Absurdist. Contrived. Or an unexpectedly unusual concept album that doesn't quite come off but was worth the effort. And you would be correct every time."[17]
Writing for IndieWire, David Ehrlich noted that the film "is first and foremost a testament to the shared artifice of all filmic storytelling, and to the singular realities it’s able to bring alive in turn."[18]
In Vulture, Bilge Ebiri called the film the best he had seen at Cannes and "a magnificent film, one that feels warm and familiar even as we realize just how startlingly original it is."[19]
The film was named to TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list for 2024.[20]
