June 22, 2025
by Carla Hay
“Honeyjoon”
Directed by Lilian Mehrel
Some language in Portuguese with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place on the São Miguel island in Portugal’s Azores region, the dramatic film “Honeyjoon” features a Portuguese and Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An Iranian British widow and her U.S.-raised young adult daughter take a vacation together, and the women grapple with their grief and some unresolved issues between them.
Culture Audience: “Honeyjoon” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching competently acted dramas about mother-daughter relationships and how immigration affects people’s lives.
The drama “Honeyjoon” takes a low-key approach to a mother and a daughter reconnecting during a vacation in Portugal, where they confront their emotional wounds. The pacing can get dull, but a friendly tour guide brings intrigue to the family dynamics. The movie also has thoughtful observations about the immigrant experience from the perspectives of an immigrant parent and a non-immigrant child.
Written and directed by Lilian T. Mehrel, “Honeyjoon” is her feature-film directorial debut. “Honeyjoon” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie was film takes place on the São Miguel island in Portugal’s Azores region, where “Honeyjoon” was filmed on location. The two family members who are at the center of the story are recently widowed Lela Mer (played by Amira Casar) and her bachelorette daughter June (played Ayden Mayeri), who have more differences than similarities in their personalities.
“Honeyjoon” is a conversation-driven movie that focuses only on a few characters, even though the locations are filled with other people. The movie skillfully conveys that even on this vacation trip, Lela and June prefer to keep to themselves. The circumstances of this trip are unusual because June (who is in her early 20s and who is Lela’s only child) didn’t expect to be on this vacation with Lela.
The trip was originally planned as a wedding anniversary celebration for Lela and her husband (June’s father), who unexpectedly died of cancer one year before this trip takes place. São Miguel holds special memories for Lela because it’s where she and her late husband spent some time during their courtship. Instead of canceling these vacation plans, Lela asks June to accompany her on this trip.
It’s mentioned at the beginning of the movie that Lela and June, who both live in the United States, don’t see each other in person very often because Lela lives on the East Coast, while June lives on the West Coast. But the distance between Lela and June has a lot more to do with emotional estrangement than physical locations. The conversations in the movie reveal that mother and daughter have had tensions for quite some time about Lela’s opinions of how June is living her life.
Lela thinks that June (who is a medical school dropout) needs to have more defined and planned goals for June’s career and personal life. June would rather have a “go with the flow” approach to her life and doesn’t want to put strict deadlines on herself. June mentions at one point in the movie that she’s taking a break from dating because she hasn’t had much luck in finding someone special, but she’s still open to finding true love.
Lela was born in Iran and is of Kurdish heritage. Lela was a child when she and her family fled Iran sometime during the Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution) period from February 1978 to January 1979, when the monarchical government was overthrown by a rebel faction that established the Islamic Republic of Iran. Lela and her refugee family settled in the United Kingdom (she still has a British accent), she met her future husband when she was in he 20s, and the couple lived in the United States, where June was born.
Early on in the movie, it’s easy to see how different Lela and June are from each other. Lela has brought a plastic pouch bag of her deceased husband’s hair with her and wants to give some of the hair to June. June declines the offer and thinks it’s morbid that Lela is carrying around this plastic bag of a dead person’s hair.
Lela is very much caught up in following news about the Women, Life, Freedom movement that advocates for women’s rights in Iran. It affects Lela emotionally when she sees news reports about women from the movement getting arrested. By contrast, June wants to tune out that type of news during this vacation because she thinks it’s too depressing.
“Honeyjoon” has a few moments of discomfort that are supposed to be somewhat amusing. The hotel booking for Lela was for a couple’s honeymoon-style accommodations, such as one bed in the room and activities such as couple’s massages. When Lela and June check into hotel, June has to explain the front desk clerk that she and Lela are not lovers but are actually mother and daughter.
June and Lela find out that the room that was booked for them has only one bed. They can’t switch rooms because the hotel is fully booked up, and it’s too late to cancel the booking because it would involve a hefty fee that Lela doesn’t want to pay. And so, June and Lela agree to make the best of these accommodations, including sharing the same bed.
June is much more uncomfortable about it than Lela, whose occasional farting in bed is supposed to bring some comic relief in the movie. But there’s a poignant scene when Lela (who has been having some nightmares) asks June to hold her in a comforting way in bed so Lela can try to go to sleep. It’s a moment when June sees firsthand the profound loneliness that Lela must be feeling to no longer have a spouse who can hold Lea to bring that comfort.
Rather than go on a big group tour, June decides that it’s better to pay extra for a more intimate and custom tour with just herself, Lela and a tour guide. The tour guide happens to be a handsome man named João (played by José Condessa), who drives June and Lela to various scenic locations and tells some history about these locations. João is an available bachelor who’s about the same age as June.
During the guided tour, which involves a lot of outdoor hiking and climbing, June is dressed in a long white dress, which isn’t exactly ideal for these outdoor activities. Lela is dressed more practically. During the guided tour, June and João have an unspoken attraction to each other, but June acts very reserved, as if she’s unsure about expressing this attraction to João while Lela is right there on the tour. Meanwhile, Lela is more talkative and friendly to João, and their instant rapport makes June feel like a third wheel.
Lela considers herself to be a supporter of the feminist movement in Iran, but some of her traditional upbringing seeps back into her conversations with June. For example, Lela gives some criticism to June for June’s choice of swimwear (which has a thong) when they get some unwanted catcall attention from men at a beach. June snaps back by reminding Lela that part of the women’s liberation movement is that women should be allowed to wear whatever they want.
João opens up to Lela and June about his fractured family: Both of his parents abandoned him when he was a child. There’s a sweet-natured part of the movie when João takes a detour and introduces Lela and June to his grandmother (played by Teresa Faria), who is living with dementia. June feels even closer to João when she sees that João knows what it’s like to have a family member with a deadly disease.
“Honeyjoon” doesn’t really build up to a major turning point in the story. It’s a “slice of life” movie that shows a series of vignettes during a period of a few days during this trip. As expected, “Honeyjoon” has some stunning scenes of the gorgeous São Miguel landscapes.
The rhythm of “Honeyjoon” has stops and starts with conversations that sometimes crackle with intensity and other times are very mundane. However, the performances of Casar and Mayeri are consistently solid and convincing as a mother and daughter who are navigating through their grief and other issues. Viewers will leave the movie knowing that this guided tour that Lela and June take outdoors is a way for mother and daughter to deal with their internal emotions that will have an impact that lasts longer than this vacation.
