Amir Jadidi in A Hero (Amirhossein Shojaei/Amazon Studios)

A youngish man leaves an Iranian jail with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. But Rahim Soltani of the ironically titled A Hero will soon be embroiled in a simmering stew of trouble: a noble deed gone awry, a social media pile-on, authorities’ political conniving, and a good old-fashioned vendetta. Director Asghar Farhadi has a habit of plunging his central characters into distinctly Iranian dilemmas that test their morals and resolve, most notably in the high-tension A Separation, a powerful work that fully deserved its 2012 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. A Hero opts for a plot with more twists, but it flattens out and loses force in a case of more is less.

Released from debtor’s prison for a weekend leave, Rahim is eager for a way to pay off his debt to an angry in-law once removed. He also wants to assure his girlfriend on the outside of his love. Although it goes mostly unmentioned, a penniless and divorced prisoner may not have much to offer a woman in her thirties whose family does not approve of her suitor. As played by Amir Jadidi, Rahim wears a plaintive half-smile throughout, an expression that may communicate worry, beseeching, or sometimes misplaced self-confidence. The perpetual smile creates an ambiguity around the character: Is Rahim eager to please or just shifty? With a son who grapples with a severe speech impediment and a bluff brother-in-law who wants him to get his act together, Rahim is under a lot of pressure. He could use a break on this furlough.

Relief arrives in the form of a lost handbag. Rahim’s girlfriend, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldoust), stumbles across a bag full of gold coins—a great find, but not enough to pay off Rahim’s nut. Rahim comes up with the idea of pasting signs seeking the bag’s owner, a gesture that will make him look like a public-spirited Good Samaritan (never mind that it was the girlfriend who found the bag in the first place). Rahim’s ruse rather improbably comes to fruition. Administrators at his jail arrange a feel-good TV appearance to make an example of Rahim. A charity sponsors him for a job. But in a society where it is implied that no one trusts each other or minds their own business, doubts begin to sprout about Rahim’s tale. Fights break out. When Rahim foolishly enlists his vulnerable girlfriend in a lie about where the money came from, his helpers, all with their own agendas, promptly turn on him.  

And that’s not the end of the story by a long shot. A Hero’s sad tale just gets busier and busier, with a peripheral life or death issue suddenly—and seemingly arbitrarily—raising the stakes. Additionally, Rahim enlists sympathy by having his son sadly stammer to a disapproving room that daddy is a good guy. A viral video comes into play. It’s a lot of activity to take place around a wistful antihero buffeted by events and unable to make a good decision on his own or anyone else’s behalf. “Poor people whose hero is you,” sneers Rahim’s embittered creditor, Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh). “They feel sorry for your poor kid’s stutter and for you who drag him in front of people to cry and beg.” 

There’s a grain of truth to this harsh put-down, and it applies not just at Rahim but also to the movie. A Hero uses Rahim’s little boy as a sort of pathos piñata, trotting him out multiple times to do nothing but gasp and look mournful. Contrivances like these deflate the film, for all its plot convolutions and barbed social commentary. Oppressions and indignities grind on, but the emotions at the heart of the story don’t come across as real. The trademark Rahim smile that never goes away creates a certain distance, although it’s hard to tell whether it’s an acting tic or a reflection of the character’s inner anxiety. 

Class misconception could play a role in the film’s air of a near miss. A Separation showcased a sophisticated Tehran couple who employed domestic help and had the choice to leave the country. Another Farhadi film, About Elly, focused on Iran’s privileged jeunesse dorée. A Hero, by contrast, takes place among working-class people with few options. Farhadi probably wants to shine a light on this group, victims of hardscrabble poverty and bureaucratic bullying, but the director seems more naturally in tune with the smart, combative characters of his earlier films. However, Farhadi deserves credit for trying to look at his country through a different set of eyes. Maybe his next film can bring stronger actors (and characters) to one of his smart analyses of Iranian society.