A Hero

A Hero

Engrossing and nagging moral tales are created by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi without stooping to overt moralizing. He did the same but set his subtle parables in the provinces of romance and sex. Even Farhadi’s 2011 marriage drama, “A Separation,” was more concerned with situational ethics than erotic entanglements. His new picture, “A Hero,” is set and shot in his home country his previous film “Everybody Knows,” starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, was shot in Spain where debtor’s prison is still a thing.

As Rahim begins running from this very place, he becomes the title character who is ultimately ironic. He’s not escaping; he’s on leave. (This movie has attracted online criticism for showing its debtor’s prison as too cushy.) Not only is he on leave, but he also has a plan to win his release. Amir Jadidi does a great job playing this role.

He has a winning smile. When he’s in hangdog mode something some people criticize about what they see as his manipulative personality he looks like Jake Johnson after losing weight. In any case, there might be some energy inside him that could make us want him to succeed.

His plan: well, we get it piece by piece, but basically it revolves around a lost handbag with lots of gold coins in it. When Rahim and Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), Rahim’s loyal girlfriend take these coins for evaluation then they start getting worried because they know that something bad will happen next; it won’t pay off much money compared to what Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh) needs from him as well plus wants another strong guarantee about remaining amount which Rahim has been hustling with relatives-in-law over as far as securing an agreement thereon is concerned; now whether or not what follows is triggered by real crisis of conscience, or disappointment arising out of overwhelming evidence that this plan isn’t going to work anyway cannot be known for sure but instead he opts to return it rather than cashing in its contents.

And so begins one of those stories where nothing goes right for anyone who tries to do something good, but this time it’s not clear how good the thing was in the first place. The warden of Rahim’s prison seizes an opportunity and tells the media about his actions, shopping a human interest story around town.

A council catches wind through their charity arm, things snowball from there, Rahim gets high on life and Bahram’s left holding the bag. It is some of the most exhilarating physical acting of the year to watch Tanabandeh stand there with his arms crossed so tight you could pry them apart with a crowbar while his character looks on at a public lovefest for Rahim.

The more people look into this guy, though, the more holes they find. And sometimes it feels like one lie bests itself (despite every single bad decision being made by Rahim), nearly breaking Rahim’s son whose speech problems make him catnip for someone weaving together a heartstring-tugging narrative destined for wide circulation in certain sectors of what we’ll call “the media.”

Farhadi shoots and cuts with his usual efficient grace; he never puts the camera down wrong or stages a scene awkwardly. But his script isn’t anywhere near as smooth as he wants it to be. I often got the sense that he wrote first all those different bad ends for Rahim and then laid traps at this point almost unconsciously for him to stumble into route to that non-resolution resolution that marks so many Farhadi movies. But as an indictment of systems which ultimately govern every human interaction regardless of Europe, America, or Asia’s superficial societal disparities, A Hero is chilling in its demonstration that money really does change everything.

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