A Hero (PG)
127 minutes, opens March 31
4 stars
In Iran, owing money can land a person in jail. The legal system believes in the idea of collective responsibility. Your family should help repay the debt or the creditor can petition the state to lock you up until someone who cares for you steps up.
The practice might sound mediaeval, but it recognises that creditors have rights too.
Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi, a double Oscar winner, builds his story around a man sent to debtors' prison. Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is allowed out for a family visit when an incident occurs that puts him at a crossroads. Should he do the right thing and remain locked up or profit from someone else's misfortune and ensure his own happiness and that of his young son?
If you enjoy Farhadi's social dramas, you should be familiar with and, quite likely, love his cinema of moral anxiety. Characters commit indiscretions, often done in the name of love - a white lie about a friend's marital status (About Elly, 2009), a shove to eject an unwelcome person from the home (Oscar winner A Separation, 2011) - and the act triggers a cascade of horrifying consequences.
In A Hero, winner of the Grand Prix at 2021's Cannes Film Festival, Rahim's act puts him at the mercy of every bureaucrat and nosy passer-by who believes his right to expose the truth beats Rahim's right to be left alone. Much of the man's ordeal results from those from a higher class believing it is their duty to put the upstart back in his place.
Like many Farhadi protagonists, his suffering is intense. It is done to elicit sympathy, but it never feels manipulative. This is a story without villains, just citizens trying to survive, even if it means throwing someone like Rahim under the bus. The man, a sign painter who lost his business after large-format printers made his skills pointless, has a dignity that makes his agony feel more painful.
Farhadi's way with ensemble casts is legendary, and here, as in his other films, the actors listen and react to one another in such a way one wishes every film-maker would take notes.
Most of all, Farhadi's mastery of dialogue is on display. Through speech, his characters spell out their motivations without sounding like exposition machines, nor does he create contemplative lulls so that people reveal their evolving motivations. Action set pieces are created, composed of dialogue - characters are placed in a room so they can interrogate, implore or apologise, with each set piece unearthing new information that pushes the story along. It is a symphony of words, conducted by a maestro.
Morbius (PG13)
105 minutes, opens March 31, not reviewed
This movie is set in the Spider-Man universe and stars Jared Leto as the title character, a scientist who inadvertently becomes a vampire following an attempt at curing himself of a blood disease. Like Venom, a menacing creature who has appeared in two films (2018 and 2021), Morbius is an anti-hero.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (PG)
122 minutes, opens March 31, not reviewed
The sequel to the first movie (2020), adapted from the popular video-game series, bears the same mix of live-action and animation. After the events of the last movie, fast-running blue hedgehog Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) embraces his destiny as a hero and decides to stay in Green Hills, Montana, home to Tom and Maddie (James Marsden and Tika Sumpter).
