Review: 'A Hero' is a quietly devastating drama about a good deed and its aftermath

In the last decade, the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has become one of the most reliably brilliant directors working — with two films he made in Iran, “A Separation” in 2011 and “The Salesman” in 2016, winning Academy Awards, and his European-made films, “The Past” (with Bérénice Bejo) and “Everybody Knows” (with Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz), winning acclaim.

With his newest film, “A Hero,” Farhadi raises his game again, with a devastatingly human story about the slippery space between doing good and doing what one must to survive.

Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is a sign painter is serving time in debtor’s prison, because a business prospect went bad and he couldn’t replay the print shop owner, Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), who loaned him 150,000 tomans (roughly $5,000 in American currency) and stubbornly refuses to forgive the debt.

When Rahim gets a weekend leave from prison, he hopes to execute a plan to get free. His secret girlfriend, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), recently found a handbag at a bus stop — and 17 gold coins inside, valued at about half of what Rahim owes Bahram. Rahim’s plan is to sell that gold, give the proceeds to Bahram, and convince his creditor to drop charges so Rahim can work off his remaining debt outside of prison.

Three things thwart the plan: Behram’s intransigence, the fluctuating value of gold, and Rahim’s conscience. Rahim decides he can’t steal from the woman who lost her handbag, so he puts out a flyer to find the real owner and — with help from Rahim’s sister, Malileh (Maryam Shadaei) — the owner is reunited with her bag and her gold.

The officials at Rahim’s prison tell the media about his good deed, and soon he becomes a media sensation. But holes in his story — most of them because the full truth could bring harm to women in the narrative — send Rahim’s quest for freedom into a tailspin.

Farhadi’s deceptively calm shooting style allows the strong ensemble cast to shine as they move through some quietly intense scenes of confrontations, verbal and physical. Farhadi also allows room to play with the idea that the earnest Rahim isn’t all good and the abrasive Bahram isn’t all bad, with both living in the in-between space all humans inhabit.

Some parts of Farhadi’s screenplay are specific to Iran (debtors’ prisons aren’t much of a thing in the States, unless you count cash bail, and probably we should). What makes the film so resonant are the parts that could be happening anywhere. The idea of barbering the truth for the sake of someone’s reputation, whether that be a frustrated prisoner or a prestigious charity, is not a foreign concept here. Neither is the concept of a single social-media post upending someone’s life.

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‘A Hero’

★★★★

Opens Friday, January 7, at Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and language. Running time: 127 minutes; in Farsi with subtitles.