Ashes — Erdem Tepegöz

That hunk in the romance novel you’re reading — what if he was real and ready to mingle? That’s the entertaining and confident premise of Ashes, the newest film from experienced Turkish director Erdem Tepegöz. A pretty, married woman reads a smutty book and scopes out the patisserie where the hot lead — he even has a neck tattoo! — in the spicy book spends his time when he’s not in his carpentry shop. The book’s mysterious author promises that “M” changes the lives of everyone he touches. The shop is real and she, Gökçe (Funda Eryigit), quickly finds out that the book blurs fiction and reality. Her book boyfriend becomes her illicit (and explicit) amour fou in an affair she doesn’t even bother to cover up. Metin Ali (Alperen Duymaz) is the “real” person behind “M” found in Kül (or Ashes), the book in question having been written by a former lover. But what begins as a thrilling romance between Gökçe and Metin morphs into a mystery as Gökçe’s husband, Kenan (Mehmet Günsür), who runs a publishing house where his wife weeds out the literary chaff, becomes suspicious.

The script, courtesy of Erdi Isik, walks on thin ice. A lot could have gone wrong quite quickly here — particularly by tiptoeing in embarrassment around the film’s inherent connection to sensual romance novels usually marketed at and consumed by women — and stereotypically, by women in monogamous heterosexual relationships — but Ashes has enough confidence and sincerity to stave off any such concerns.

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