Fireworks Wednesday

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.

This film by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, About Elly) is well made, though in my opinion he has done better. There are elements in this movie you see in other films of the director: heated marital discussions, secrets and lies coming to the light, cultural differences between the middle class and the working class. However, the end result is not as compelling as in other of his movies.

The action transpires on a single day in Tehran during the celebration of the Iranian new year (a holiday where a lot of fireworks are thrown). The young Rouhi (played by the pretty and talented Taraneeh Alidosti, who was in About Elly), is a working class woman that will soon marry her boyfriend. She gets a temporary job cleaning a apartment in a middle class neighborhood. Upon arriving at the apartment she finds herself in the middle of a heated domestic dispute between Mojdeh and Morteza. Mojdeh (Heyde Tehrani, who's great) suspects that her husband Morteza is cheating on her with the next door neighbor Simin, a woman who set up a beauty salon there after her own marriage broke up. Over the course of the day, Rouhi, the fighting couple, their small son, the wife's sister and husband, and the beautician engage in a series of exchanges and confrontations, as the truth unfolds.

Of course, the central conceit of the film, that the residents of the apartment complex would trust this cleaning lady they barely know so much they would confide to her all their problems, is absurd. At one point, Mojdeh even asks Rouhi to pick her young son at school (she has only known her for a few hours, and already trusts her to fetch her son, whom Rouhi has never met!)

Not knowing much about Iranian culture, I was intrigued by the relationship between Rouhi and her boyfriend. I suppose Iran being a culturally conservative country their relationship before marriage is non sexual, yet they seem so close and loving, especially at the opening scenes of the movie. But the movie doesn't dwell too much in this, a pity since you don't see much about young love in Iranian movies.

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.

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.

... on any day of the week and, in fairness, a story of a marriage falling apart that could be played out in just about any setting around the world, as a recently hired apartment cleaner finds herself embroiled between a husband and mistrusting spouse, who may or may not be reading more into her errant partners behaviour, but is determined to find out one way or another regardless. Sparkling performances all round.