Taking a vacation with your mother might not work for some people and for June (Ayden Mayeri) and her mother Lela (Amira Casar) there’s an added complication: They are in mourning.

Lela’s husband died a year ago and he had always wanted to take June and Lela to this Azorean island, but never got the chance. Instead, Lela and June go together on vacation where they are together, but separated by their perspectives and sexual longings. She wants photos of herself looking sexy while her mother and others want her to cover up. June has a different approach to feminism and her ethnic background and June is embarrassed by her mother’s constant tracking of women’s position and suffering in the country of her birth, Iran.

Written and directed by US-born Lilian T. Mehrel, who is part Iranian (mother) and part German (father), the film could fall into a predictable tale of renewal and sex with hot foreign men, but this film is more nuanced and thoughtful than that.

First, there’s unknown history. The father had once visited the island when he was dealing with his grief over his father’s death. Second, who would you expect to find on a sunny Mediterranean island (off of Portugal)? Honeymooning couples. The title is a portmanteau of honeymoon and June. While not a major tourist trap, the island has its own charm and that means couples wanting quiet romantic time and a deal. Lela and June have booked a room and a tour on a honeymooning special. That means one bed and having to rub shoulders with couples more interested in rubbing their bodies together for heated and passionate exchanges.  While June finds she has no choice but to sleep in the same bed as her mother, she does dole out more dollars to sightsee privately. The tour guide is a surfer-dude João (Portuguese actor José Condessa) who introduces the possibility of romance, but he is also dealing with a type of grief.

Mehrel allows us to see them as individuals with differing ways of confronting loss and there are even flights of fantasy. Lela has lost the country and culture of her youth and June may never be able to explore Iran and she lives in a place where the general population has negative views of her heritage. Finding pride in her heritage seems more challenging for her and she surely isn’t alone there. Casar and Mayeri are believable as mother and daughter. There’s ‘s a sense of familiarity but also one of awkward ignorance that suggests a distance that has yet to be crossed.

Everyone will be touched with loss and grief, but not everyone will be fortunate enough to explore it in an open space and time in a sunny location. This is a lovely depiction of individuals of Iranian/Persian descent, living without the possibility of visiting Iran and still coming to terms with their heritage. Considering the current political situation, it’s a timely reminder that we should see Iranians as individuals.