Offside

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Jafar Panahi of Iran is one of his country's great filmmakers, and Offside is his best movie to date.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

So accessible and entertaining.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

It's a sports film unlike any other, and a political film that makes the personal profound.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Jafar Panahi's wonderfully funny, outspoken shaggy-dog story, a light counterweight to his sadder 2000 feminist drama "The Circle."

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The interaction between soldiers and captives becomes a microcosm for an entire culture. It's a wisp of a movie but it has stayed with me longer than much supposedly weightier fare.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Offside is blatantly metaphoric and powerfully concrete, deceptively simple and highly sophisticated in its formal intelligence.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

This is Iranian cinema at its most accessible: a bit slow even in its 92 minutes, with more environment than story, but deeply immersive and thought-provoking, and quite often funny.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Exhilarating, exuberant and drolly funny.

Boston Globe Janice Page

As funny as it is sharp.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

In the midst of his many other achievements here -- his documentary realism, his wry humanism, his allegorical subtlety -- Panahi even manages to redeem the good name of toilet humour.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Director Jafar Panahi has long been an eloquent and passionate representative for Iranian women. But judging by this deeply poignant comedy, they may not need a mouthpiece much longer.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Poignant and sometimes downright hilarious, much of the film unfolds in the small area outside the arena -- an "offside" penalty box for women who just won't behave.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

The masterly Panahi concocts a spellbinding, often corrosively and/or warmly funny story in which love of both country and sport tries to, but doesn't quite, transcend dogmatic and ingrained difference.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

There is more comedy than outrage in this critique of sexual inequality in Iran.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Within this simple structure, Panahi manages at once to celebrate and critique his nation's passions, sexual politics, sporting heritage, laws, morality and class system. It's a fictional feature but, like many Iranian films, it feels uncannily real, particularly in its final rousing minutes.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Along with such colleagues as Abbas Kiarostami and Moshen Makhmalbaf, Panahi has perfected the art of realist filmmaking,

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Women's roles and the eternal fight to expand their rights in Iranian society get a light, hugely entertaining treatment in Jafar Panahi's Offsides.

Variety Deborah Young

In his most accessible and spontaneous picture, ranking Iranian helmer Jafar Panahi reveals unsuspected comic gifts barely visible in his dramatic festival winners "The White Balloon," "The Circle" and "Crimson Gold."

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A charming, character-driven film that conveys enormous feeling for its people

The New York Times A.O. Scott

While the gist of Offside is the same (as "The Circle"), its tone is more insouciant, as it celebrates the guile and toughness of its heroines while casting a sympathetic glance at the ethical quandaries facing their jailers.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

As the political rhetoric between Washington and Tehran becomes dangerously overheated, Offside offers an intimate antidote: an affectionate glimpse into the cultural schisms that young Tehranis face every day. Western audiences will cheer the rebellious girls on.

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

Although its message is deadly serious, is is filled with wit and winning characters.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The story is good-natured, but Panahi's message is serious: That ludicrous rules turn Iranian women into third-class citizens. And what better way is there to get that point across than through sports and laughter?

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The delicately subversive Mr. Panahi makes his subjects perfectly clear -- the stupidity of authority, and the hypocrisy of discrimination. Offside is surprisingly entertaining, and edifying to boot.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

There's a commitment to half-improvised, ground-level realism that lends the picture news value and an obvious urgency.