A Hero: The elusive nature of truth

A Hero (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

This would have made a terrific courtroom drama, with its story emerging via lengthy flashbacks.

 

Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s newest film is a thoughtful, increasingly puzzling character study: a twisty saga fueled by strong, relatable performances.

 

Rahim (Amir Jadidi, right) and his son Saivash (Saleh Karimai) do their best to find the
grateful woman whose property was restored, to no avail.

Farhadi likes to mess with viewer expectations. His everyday dramas begin simply enough, and seem to proceed in linear fashion … but that’s a trap. As events proceed, we — and the characters involved in the story — gradually realize that assumptions are misleading; subsequent bits of information emerge that topple what seemed to be solid details.

As I mentioned, in my review of Farhadi’s excellent 2011 film, A Separation, his characters (and we viewers) base their opinions, feelings and loyalties on what they’ve been told, and what they believe they know.

 

A Separation took that year’s Oscar for Best International Film, and Farhadi also garnered a well-earned writing nomination. A Hero took the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the exalted Palme d’Or; it’s easy to see why the judges were transfixed by this equally twisty story.

 

The setting is modern-day Shiraz. Events begin as Rahim (Amir Jadidi), in prison due to a debt he’s unable to repay, obtains a two-day leave in order to visit his family: sister Mali (Maryam Shahdaei) and brother-in-law Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh). They’ve been caring for Rahim’s son — Saivash (Saleh Karimai), a painfully shy boy with a severe stutter — following an unpleasant divorce.

 

On his way home, Rahim finds a purse with a broken strap; it contains 17 gold coins. Initially believing it a means of settling at least part of his debt to Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), Rahim has second thoughts and — instead — puts up fliers, in an effort to reunite the purse with its actual owner. A young woman responds, accurately describes the purse and its varied contents, and is tearfully grateful when she gets it back intact.

 

Word of this good deed gets out; the usury prison officials — who’ve long regarded Rahim a model inmate, and also smell an opportunity for positive publicity — arrange for a television interview. The story of Rahim’s noble act, when so many others would have kept the coins for their own purposes, makes him a popular social media hero.

 

The soft-spoken Jadidi — rarely without his humble, deferential smile — blossoms like a spring flower, during the subsequent tsunami of respect: a man ignored for so long, often treated with contempt, suddenly lionized. He can’t begin to comprehend this new feeling.