Two lovers, four bodies. Boaz Yakin's Aviva, a 2020 French-American drama, casts both a man and a woman in each of its two leading roles and lets dance carry as much of the story as dialogue does.
What is Aviva about?
Aviva and Eden meet, court each other and decide to build a life together. Their relationship moves through the stages most couples would recognise: the rush of first contact, a proposal, a marriage, and then the slow friction of two people discovering how much of themselves they have kept hidden. What sets the telling apart is its casting idea. Each partner is embodied by two performers, one male and one female, so that the masculine and feminine sides of a single person can argue, comfort or sabotage one another on screen. The couple struggle, separate and keep trying to find a place in each other's lives, and the marriage that comes apart gradually reshapes itself into a close friendship. Conventional dramatic scenes alternate with long passages of expressive choreography across the 116-minute running time.
About the cast
The listed cast is Zina Zinchenko, Bobbi Jene Smith, Tyler Phillips, Annie Rigney, Mouna Soualem, Omri Drumlevich, Debra Kay Anderson and Or Schraiber, working under director Boaz Yakin. Because movement does so much of the narrative work here, the performers are asked to act with their whole bodies and not only with their voices.
Context & significance
Aviva sits where three genres meet: drama, music and romance. It is not a musical in the song-and-dance-number sense; the dance sequences are part of how the characters think and feel, closer to contemporary dance theatre than to a stage show. The film's central device, splitting one character between a male and a female performer, turns an abstract question about gender and identity inside a relationship into something an audience can actually watch. That makes it a demanding piece for viewers expecting a straightforward love story, and a rewarding one for those curious about how cinema can borrow from choreography. Reception was mixed, which is common for formally experimental work, and the film is frank in its treatment of adult intimacy, so it is suited to grown-up audiences.
Watching Aviva on Ktime
Aviva can be watched on K-Time, a streaming service designed for the Iranian diaspora with a Farsi interface throughout. This page is free to read; to play the film you sign in with a K-Time account. No Persian dub or Persian subtitle track is listed for this title at present.