Fireworks Wednesday

A wide-eyed bride-to-be gets a temp job as a housemaid, and finds herself in the middle of an explosive situation, and not just from the fireworks celebration of the New Year. Yet another fantastic movie from Iran, brimming with intense yet somehow understated family drama... something like Cassavetes, perhaps. The performances are all really good, especially Hedye Tehrani as the jealous wife (to continue the Cassavetes comparison, she's got kind of a Gena Rowlands thing going on). Although the commentary on gender roles will have more meaning to an Iranian audience, there is a universality to the situation and the interactions. These could easily be American characters, in an American city. Using the noise of the fireworks to punctuate the drama, however, is a little too obvious.

Chaharshanbe-soori (2006) was shown in the U.S. with the title "Fireworks Wednesday. It was written and directed by Asghar Farhadi.

This movie really has two plots. One plot line involves a young working class woman who who will be married in a week. She starts work at the apartment of a wealthy family. Just a few minutes into the plot we realize that this is a dysfunctional family. The husband has flown into a rage and smashed a window with his fist. (He has a bandage in his hand throughout the movie.) The wife suspects that her husband is having an affair. She enlists the young maid to spy for her.

The relationship between the wife and the husband is the second plot line. Is the husband truly having an affair, or is this a neurotic obsession on the part of the wife?

(There's a third subplot about a man who parks his car just outside the gates of the apartment. He appears friendly enough, but I could never figure out what he was doing there. Probably everyone who saw the movie in Iran understood perfectly well what was happening. I couldn't get it. Even so, two solid plots are plenty for one movie.)

The reason the movie is called "Fireworks Wednesday" is because it's the Persian New Year, and everyone is shooting off fireworks. Fireworks are everywhere. I've never been to a movie--including war movies--with so many explosions in it. After a while, your brain partly shuts out the sound, but it's always there.

This is a powerful, dramatic, well-acted film. Although it's a drama, there are many funny moments. For example, the young outside worker and the older woman who works as concierge bond immediately. They'll never be in the upper class, but that doesn't mean they can't laugh at the weird rich people for whom they work.

The two female leads in the movie are extraordinarily talented. Hedye Tehrani plays the wife & Taraneh Alidoosti plays the domestic worker.

We saw this movie at home on the small screen, and it worked very well. It has a very high IMDb rating of 7.8, so I'm not alone in my admiration of it.

If you like unusual, interesting foreign films, with great direction and great acting, find this movie and enjoy it!

With gripping, tightly structured screenplay covering themes of marriage, lies, deception, and infidelity, superbly shot and brilliantly directed with so much depth and nuances to bring out the most impressive performances out of its cast, 'Fireworks Wednesday' is another testament of Asghar Farhadi as a master of story-telling.

Another gem of a portrait, Fireworks Wednesday is a effective & impressive domestic drama which remains to be Asghar Farhadi's underrated masterpiece. Featuring a gripping plot that gets better as the story progresses, tightly structured screenplay, captivating performances from its cast & tight editing, Asghar Farhadi creates an amazing picture. Covering themes of lies, deception, marriage & infidelity from the eyes of an engaged young woman, while also keeping its narration perfectly stable by finding a fine balance between its suspense, mystery & drama, Fireworks Wednesday is a faith-shattering cinema that's powerful and thoroughly recommended.

Chaharshanbeh Soori is a beautiful movie, directed with so much subtlety and refinement, bringing the best of the actors out of them. The superb narratives and very good filming are topped with great story telling, making it a must-see and a fresh blood in the Iranian cinema.

The complication of human behavior and psyche as well as the flow of the events, thoughts, and emotions, remind one of Milan Kundera's novels.

The character development is really flawless, and I have never seen Hedyeh Tehrani in a better and more touching scene than the one where she is in the bathroom with her sister in Fireworks Wednesday.

Great job and congratulations to Asghar Farhadi and Mani Haghighi.