MARYAM

1/2

Iranians face bias in New Jersey.

Running time: 87 minutes. Not rated (violence). At the Angelika, Houston and Mercer streets.

‘MARYAM” is a well-meaning but flawed drama about the bias faced by Iranians living in the United States during the 1979 hostage crisis.

Directed by Iranian-American Ramin Serry, it zeroes in on Maryam, who is played perfectly by exotic Mariam Parris.

She’s a teen of Iranian descent living in suburban New Jersey with her mother and her strict, old-world father.

(Parties, football games and fun in general are a no-no.)

Her life gets more difficult when a cousin, Ali (David Ackert), comes from Iran to stay with her family while he goes to a local college.

He’s a radical Muslim with a fierce hatred of the Shah of Iran, who at the time is holed up in a Manhattan hospital suffering from terminal cancer.

Ali also blames Maryam’s father for his own dad’s death back in Iran.

America is going through a surge of flag-waving patriotism, a lot like the one that has gripped the country since Sept. 11.

A side affect is an outbreak of bias against Iranians, including Maryam and her family.

At school, Maryam must put up with taunting (“How’s your terrorist cousin?”) by her all-American classmates. And the girl’s parents suddenly find themselves shunned by neighbors.

Serry does a fine job of capturing the climate of the times and, perhaps unwittingly, relating it to what is happening in America in 2002.

But hard-to-believe plot twists force the movie off track in its final half hour.