A Hero
Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) blurs the line of innocence and guilt in a fraught drama about the true weight of a good deed.
21/22 Hop FilmOn a two-day pass from prison, Rahim (Amir Jadidi) uses gold coins of questionable provenance to try to pay off a debt, hoping to clear his name. When that fails, he returns the money and inadvertently becomes a social media celebrity. Then, all hell breaks loose. Writer-director Asghar Farhadi triumphantly returns to the form he employed in his Academy Award-winning A Separation: A tiny conflict, little more than an anecdote, quietly and inexorably generates a roiling sea of misunderstandings, half-truths and sudden explosions of frustration and violence. Gradually, every fault line of contemporary Iranian society is exposed. Farhadi works with ironic, humane and agonizing precision, and his peripheral vision—he brings to the tale minor characters he sees from the corner of his eye—alters the story in unexpected ways. The cast, particularly Jadidi as the embattled hero, is superb. (Iran, 2021, subtitled, 2h7m) Courtesy of Amazon
