So here's the problem with trying to watch all the Oscar nominees every year. I inevitably miss some and they end up clumping together in my queue, which means I get bogged down in depressing drama after depressing drama. CW: sexual assault (off-screen)Forced to move from their home, Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) are grateful when a friend finds them a temporary apartment. This quickly turns into resentment when Rana is assaulted and the couple discover the previous tenant was a prostitute. Emad begins searching non-stop for the former john, putting his career, family, and mental health at risk.
Asghar Farhadi has made a splash with his contemporary looks into Iran. A lot of people find them compelling. After having watched The Past and A Separation, I have to say I'm not a fan. I don't like this kind of messy human drama. I find them very hard to watch. This one especially. Now, there are some cultural differences at work here and I want to be respectful of those. Farhadi incorporates elements of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman as a kind of play-within-a-play (which I had to look up because I've never actually seen it) and it works. There's definitely a correlation between how a man is perceived and how he actually is in both works. I'm just extremely annoyed that he chose to use a woman's pain and suffering to accomplish it.
They never use the word rape but it is heavily implied and Emad immediately makes it about himself. It becomes a stain on his honor by proxy and only uncovering the perpetrator will give him a sense of justice, even after Rana tells him she wants to just move on. It's sexist and regressive. Nonetheless, it is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
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