A Hero — good deeds get punished in Iranian morality tale

After a ragged result shooting a Spanish-language feature far from home, Everybody Knows, Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Salesman) comes home to make yet another subtle, layered dissection of modern morality among the Iranian middle class.

The title, it goes without saying, is ironic. Rahim (Amir Jadidi), a calligrapher and painter by trade, has an incandescent smile that has clearly opened every door for him in the past. But he has not been able to talk his way out of a debt he owes his cantankerous former brother-in-law, Braham (Mohsen Tanabandeh), who guaranteed a loan Rahim owed to a loan shark. Consequently, Rahim has been doing time in debtor’s prison, which is clearly no picnic but not so oppressive that he can’t get out once in a while on leave to visit his family and secret girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust).

When Farkhondeh finds a handbag full of gold coins, the lovers first try to sell it to relieve Rahim’s debt. But the price of gold has fallen and the find is worth less than Braham, who needs money for his daughter’s dowry, will accept. So instead they try to return the money, pretending it was Rahim who found the bag, hoping for some reward, and this act of not-quite-altruism triggers a social media and TV-fed campaign celebrating Rahim’s heroism.

The chain of accidents and good deeds that all get punished feels almost like something Guy de Maupassant might have written in the 19th century, but with a very Iranian New Wave emphasis on storytelling and performance. But this clotted morality tale doesn’t flow as effortlessly as Farhadi’s work at its best.

★★★☆☆

In UK cinemas from January 7 and on Amazon Prime Video from January 21