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Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on January 6th, 2022, reviewing a new film from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi “A Hero,” in theaters on January 7th and Amazon Prime Video on January 21st.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation” and “The Salesman”) creates empathetic insight into life in Iran. “A Hero” furthers this empathy as a man named Rahim (Amir Jadidi), who is on a sabbatical from debtors prison, gets involved in a found purse with gold coins in it. At first he wants cash for the bounty, but becomes guilty and posts signs around the neighborhood, and a grateful woman claims it. Word gets out, and Rahim is touted as a hero, but the circumstances of the find and the disappearance of the purse’s claimant cause problems with his heroism.

“A Hero” is currently in theaters beginning January 7th,...

Amir Jadidi as Rahmin and Saleh Karimai as his son Siavash, in Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian drama/thriller A Hero. Photo credit: Amirhossein Shojaei. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Debtor’s prison brings Charles Dickens to mind for most of us but this Dickensian nightmare appears to be alive in Iran – or at least prison for debt. In A Hero, two-time Oscar winning writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s latest drama/thriller, a man imprisoned for debt gets a two-day pass during which he hopes to work out a deal with his creditor. Things do not go as planned but Farhadi takes us on a twisty path and, at one point, it does look like the imprisoned debtor might become a hero.

A Hero is Iran’s official submission for the Oscars and won the Grand Prix award at Cannes last year, as well as being on several critics’ Top Ten lists.

Anglo-American titles took up much of the buzz at Telluride this year, with the exception of one title: Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero” (2021). Farhadi — known mostly for his Oscar-winning film “A Separation” (2011) — came back to the circuit to reap more awards. This Iranian Palme d’Or nominee triumphantly won the Grand Prix and the Francois Chalais Award at Cannes. Loaded with a beautifully subtle storyline and an irresistible cast of characters, this film is sure to see more accolades throughout the rest of the fest season.

In “A Hero,” one good deed blows up into a fiasco. Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is in prison because of debt. During his two-day leave, he and his secret lover Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) conspire to pay it off with a serendipitous bag of seventeen gold coins. Halfway through the transaction, however, Rahim decides to backtrack — and instead give the bag back to its owner. When the local papers find out,...

Penal system is a common topic in Iranian cinema, and for good reasons so. Firstly, the problems with it are real, from the death penalty that is administered way too much to the overcrowded prisons and the toxic mix between the all-powerful bureaucracy and the vision of justice more based in some elusive code of honour than in written laws. Secondly, prisons are the perfect metaphor for the isolated, deeply unhappy society. Thirdly, the whole idea of punishment instead of rehabilitation that is in place in Iran (among other countries) is not only prone to backfiring, but is absurd in its core, since the person with a prison record has less chances in life generally. The sense of absurdity is highlighted when it comes to imprisoning people for debt: theoretically they have to stay in prison until they pay it off, but practically it is impossible as long as they are incarcerated.

In “A Hero” (“Ghahreman”), Asghar Farhadi blurs the line of innocence and guilt in a fraught drama about the true weight of a good deed. During a two-day reprieve from prison, Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi) and his girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) discover a handbag full of golden coins. Though Rahim briefly debates selling them to help offset the cost of his debts to Braham (Mohsen Tanabandeh), the gold exchange rate is unsatisfactorily low, and he resolves to track down the original owner and return them.

Continue reading ‘A Hero’: Asghar Farhadi’s Moral Quandary Film Questions The Weight of a Good Deed [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

A good deed goes bad in Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes Film Festival competition title A Hero (Ghahreman), a thought-provoking watch which is perhaps the filmmaker’s most subtle and heartfelt film since A Separation.

Amir Jadidi puts in a charming performance as Rahim, a pleasant but somewhat hapless man who’s in prison in urban Iran for failing to pay a debt. Released for a two-day break, he meets his girlfriend (Sahar Goldust) who’s found a handbag containing gold coins. After plotting to sell them, but wrestling with his conscience, Rahim tries to find the owner and succeeds. When the prison chiefs find out, they’re shocked and thrilled, spinning the story for television. Rahim becomes a local hero, praised for handing in the bag despite his desperate circumstances. But he becomes entwined in a tangled web when the story goes wild on social media.

Farhadi, a two-time winner...

In movies like “A Separation,” “The Past,” and “The Salesman,” the Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi has demonstrated a unique ability to take “ordinary” human situations, usually on the domestic front, and play them out in a way that is so minutely authentic yet suspenseful that they give you the sensation that life itself, if observed closely enough, is a kind of thriller. “A Hero,” Farhadi’s latest film (it’s his fourth to premiere at Cannes), very much wants to be a drama of that ilk. Its story of an achingly modest and desperate man who becomes, all too fleetingly, a much discussed figure on television and social media is a story that one could easily imagine being set within the bubbling maelstrom of our own frenetic image culture.

Rahim, the central character, is serving time for an unpaid debt and has been given a two-day leave from prison, during...

Here’s some free advice for any movie characters out there: If you ever happen to stumble upon a random bag full of money — and it’s not much of a stretch to assume that you might someday — the very first thing you should do is look up and check if the opening credits are still floating in the air nearby. If you see the words “directed by Peter Farrelly,” you might be in for a pretty good time and an even better tuxedo. If you see the words “directed by Joel and Ethan Coen,” I regret to inform you that you’re already dead. But in the event that you should come across a sudden windfall only to turn your smiling head to the heavens and see the words “A film by Asghar Farhadi” painted in white letters against the blue skies of Shiraz, well… there’s really no telling what you should do,...