Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

I have seen and loved Asghar Farhadi’s films in the past, starting with A Separation in 2012 (A), then The Past in 2014 (B+), and The Salesman in 2017 (A). Apparently he shifted from Iran to Spain for a 2018 film starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem called Everybody Knows, which I never saw, somewhat surprisingly. While The Past had connections to Iran but was set in France, both A Separation and The Salesman had elements of subtle revelation about Iranian culture and daily living, and A Hero largely returns to that. Apparently, a person can be sent to jail for being too far in debt, and the debtor is the person given the power to choose whether said person is set free without the debt having been paid.

That’s a big part of the story this time, and it just didn’t hook me the way Farhadi’s previous films have. Generally speaking, it has about the same, relatively impressive production value, but with this one I’m not quite seeing the same greatness as a slew of other critics are. Maybe I’m just not as moved by a “modest morality tale.”

Farhadi, who once again both writes and directs, does weave elements of social media consequences through the narrative here in a way he hasn’t quite done before. A Hero did hold my attention for its 127-minute run time, yet again presenting Iranian people to an international audience with a deeply human eye.

Maybe I’m just missing something here, but I couldn’t quite get my head around the motivations of the central character, Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi), who spends a lot of time smiling at oddly uncomfortable moments. He has a young woman who hopes to marry when he is released from prison, who brings him a handbag full of gold coins with the hopes of selling them for enough cash to pay his debtor. This first attempt at getting himself out of jail happens during a two-day leave from the jail, and starts a chain reaction of sorts that only further complicates his position, instead of solving it.

The title, A Hero, refers to Rahim’s ultimate decision, after discovering the gold is not worth enough to bail him out, to return them to the owner of the bag. This woman is only seen once, and Rahim himself never even sees her; the exchange happens with his sister, and the original owner of the gold coins is never seen again. Rahim makes certain choices to engineer the spread, through word of mouth, of his “good deed,” which even gets to the point of his being interviewed by the local news. But, as his story is revealed to be increasing levels of shady or suspicious, particularly in the mind of his debtor, Rahim gets more desperate and makes self-destructive choices. Some of them, unfortunately, are inspired by a desire to endear himself to a young son who happens to have a stutter—ultimately another key plot point in the proceedings.

All of this is well and good, except although suspicions surface on the part of the woman to whom the gold was returned, Rahim tries in vain to find her in an effort to convince a potential employer that his story is true, and he cannot find her. This is the one element of A Hero that I remain stuck on. I want to know more about that lady, but instead she exists only as a transparent plot device. One could argue, perhaps, that it’s beside the point of the film, but to me it feels like an unnecessarily glaring loose end that’s never tied up.

That said, the performances and particularly the direction are solid, and A Hero fits well into Farhadi’s history of films with little action but great tension through narrative momentum alone. I don’t regret having watched it, I enjoyed it, and it’s a worthwhile couple of hours on Prime Video—it’s just not Farhadi’s best. His last Iranian film, The Salesman, is notably superior, and is also available on Prime Video. I recommend watching that one instead. But, if you like it, watching A Hero next might still be worthwhile.

*Rahim hopes to present himself to his son as* A Hero.

Overall: B