A Hero review: No good deed goes unpunished in thorny morality tale

The off-screen dramas that have plagued this excellent new movie are just as thorny and complex as the on-screen ones.

2 min read

June 13, 2022 - 3:30PM

A Hero is in cinemas now. Picture: HiGloss Entertainment

If the saying “no good deed goes unpunished” is applied to A Hero, it would be insufficient to describe the sequence of events that plague the story’s protagonist, Rahim.

The latest work from Asghar Farhadi, A Hero, is a morality tale as thorny as his previous acclaimed projects, The Salesman and A Separation. It’s testament to the Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker’s gift for capturing many shades of grey.

He has a light touch, eschewing any heavy-handed, didactic approach to judging his characters, which in turn makes for engaging, provocative art that challenges its audiences.

Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is a downtrodden divorced father in debtor’s prison, incarcerated after he was unable to repay a substantial loan to Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh).

While on leave for a few days, Rahim and his secret girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldoost) find a handbag containing 17 gold coins. When they realise the gold coins are not enough to pay off his debt, Rahim decides to try and return it to the person who lost it.

Amir Jadidi in A Hero. Picture: HiGloss Entertainment

His good deed gains the notice of his prison bosses, who decides to use Rahim’s seemingly selfless act as publicity for the jail, hoping to distract from a recent scandal.

The TV cameras turn up, the media swarms and hangers-on emerge, eager to latch onto the feel-good story of the debtor who turned over a fortune he could have used to help himself.

A charity raises funds to pay off his debt, and he’s promised a job at a council. But Bahram is incensed that the public now regards Rahim as some sort of saint and he a miserly villain who won’t forgive the debt.

Then the rumours start on social media, that Rahim made the whole thing up, and the tide begins to turn as his integrity is assailed.

While Farhadi is interested in the concept of “no good deed goes unpunished” through an almost-unbelievable string of events that embroil Rahim, A Hero is also interested in asking the question, what is a good deed?

A Hero asks what is a good deed? Picture: HiGloss Entertainment

Rahim isn’t a clear-cut hero. He didn’t immediately return the gold, he’s prideful, he’s not mindful towards Brahman who has suffered because of Rahim’s debt and he’s quick to anger.

Farhadi is testing the audience’s empathy in deciding Rahim’s complicity in his own demise, and to varying degree, the other characters in the story who at first seem like allies but clearly have their own agendas.

Everyone loves being associated with a hero but watch how they run when it becomes complex.

It should be mentioned that there has been a pall cast over Farhadi who has been accused of plagiarising A Hero’s story from a former film student – Farhadi just lost the case in Iranian courts, but his lawyers are reportedly appealing the verdict. If the decision stands, Farhadi will have to hand over the film’s profits to his former student, Azadeh Masihzadeh, and may have to serve a prison sentence.

Farhadi countersued Masihzadeh for defamation, for which she’s been acquitted, avoiding a two-year jail term.

The off-screen drama only adds another layer to the knotty morality of A Hero, especially as the movie is such a smart and wonderfully told story. It would be so much easier to untangle how you feel about the plagiarism case if A Hero had been bad or was thematically focused on something else.