I’ve loved every one of Asghar Farhadi’s films I’ve seen so far and I do consider this to be another great film. However the story seems to have been inspired by a real-life event as covered in a documentary made by a student of Farhadi named Azadeh Masihzadeh. She claims that Farhadi pressured her to sign a statement that the original idea came from him which she now denies and the two have since been embroiled in contentious lawsuits. I don’t think ideas belong to anyone as execution is everything but Farhadi seems to be in the wrong to me at least in being so insistent about not acknowledging any contribution whatsoever from someone so much further down the hierarchy of power than himself. Ironically this is itself the theme of the film and makes its statement about Iranian society much more powerful.

In prison for an outstanding debt, Rahim Soltani is given a two-day leave to sort out his problems. His girlfriend Farkondeh has found a handbag containing gold coins and they want to sell the gold to partially repay the debt. His creditor Bahram is the brother of his ex-wife and is unwilling to cooperate. His sister Malileh who also takes care of his son Siavash for him discovers the handbag and asks if he is doing anything illegal. In the end Rahim decides to return to the handbag to its owner and places notices about it at the place where Farkondeh found it. He puts the prison’s telephone number on the notices and returns to prison. He does indeed get a call from a woman who is able to give the correct information about the handbag and Rahim instructs Malileh who has been keeping the handbag to give it to her. The prison authorities are aware of what has happened as they listened in on Rahim’s calls and decide to publicize his good deed. Reporters are called in to interview him and a charity organization raises funds to help repay his debt. The local council seemingly has a job lined up for him. Yet there are skeptics who question his story while others accuse the prison of using the publicity to whitewash the recent suicide of an inmate and other abuses.

Whatever his faults, Farhadi is a masterful storyteller. The plot is straightforward as is usually the case in his films, but there are many characters who all act in accordance with their own interests and their entangled relationships. Yet we are engrossed in Rahim’s troubles almost seamlessly without any confusion despite a fairly significant cultural barrier for most of us. Debtors’ prison isn’t something that exists any longer in most of the world and the extent to which many of the people here value their honor and personal reputation is quite strange to me. I’d rate this drama as being somewhat below Farhadi’s best as Rahim is by design a somewhat dim protagonist and this is more about Iranian society in general than him as a person. Rahim seems befuddled about what happens to him but the audience will be able to see how his luck turns from a long way off. It also seems odd to us how assiduously the town council attempts to investigate his story just for the sake of a job.

On the surface, this film is about the fickle nature of heroism. Rahim is certainly no paragon of virtue. He loses his temper against Bahram and is willing to engage in small deceptions to solve his problems. Yet neither is he particularly immoral as he is fundamentally too honest and straightforward in his manner of thinking to be truly deceitful. If he had been just a little less virtuous or a little smarter, he could have kept the gold for himself or taken care to hand it over in a more public setting, both of which would have solved all of his problems. So it’s more fascinating to consider how everyone else reacts to his actions. Those more powerful and savvier than Rahim quickly see the propaganda value in his story. The prison authorities start the ball rolling on publicizing his actions as a model prisoner even after Rahim tells them he wasn’t really the one to find the handbag and he has to hide his relationship with Farkondeh as they aren’t married yet. Newspapers and television stations see a great story that will attract viewers. The charity organization wants to help him but also wants to burnish their own reputations. All are quick to denounce him and save themselves when his story starts being questioned on social media. We don’t know for sure if the woman who claimed the handbag is the real owner but she certainly is smarter than Rahim at covering her tracks.

In many ways, this is no different from what happens everywhere else in the world. I do however see in here an especially strong emphasis on personal honor and being seen to be virtuous which may be connected to Iran being an Islamic state. It’s notable how both the charity and the prison are happy to engage in deception themselves to protect their reputations, leading to the conclusion that public propriety is more important than actually doing the right thing. This is exactly the same type of behavior the director Farhadi himself seems to have engaged in to heighten his own international prestige at the expense of someone far weaker than himself. It’s incredibly disappointing that in his own art he shows how perfectly he understands the insidiousness of this type of moral corruption, only to practice it himself. This is of course a common failing of those with power and fame. Farhadi is unquestionably a great director and with that, he has become a powerful figure in Iranian cinema, with all that this entails.