Oscar contender ‘A Hero’ explores the complexities of doing the right thing

The title of the new Iranian movie, “A Hero,” is ironic. There are no real heroes in this film, and no bad guys, either. The writer-director, Asghar Farhadi, best known for his Oscar-winning 2011 masterpiece “A Separation,” is too much of a humanist to resort to the tactics of melodrama. 

The credo of the great French director Jean Renoir, to whom Farhadi has sometimes been compared, was that “in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has their reasons.” And so it is in “A Hero,” which is shortlisted for a best international feature film Oscar. Just when you think you’ve pinned down someone as good or bad, the tables are turned and the complexities thicken. Just like in real life.

Rahim (Amir Jadidi), the film’s lead protagonist, has been serving time in a medium-security prison for nonpayment of a debt. Let out for a few days, he seeks to make amends with Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), his irate creditor, by offering a down payment on the amount owed. This proposed partial restitution, derived from a bag of 17 gold coins found on the street by the divorced Rahim’s girlfriend, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), is the crux of the narrative’s increasingly convoluted complications.

Originally Rahim inquired into redeeming those coins for cash, but since the price of gold has dropped, the estimated amount is rejected by Bahram. Only then does Rahim attempt, instead of cashing in the coins, to publicly seek out the owner of the bag. (A distraught and seemingly believable woman comes forward and claims it.) His supposed selflessness attracts the favored attentions of both the prison authorities and a charitable social services agency. He becomes a minor media sensation. But Bahram suspects there is more to the story, as does a potential employer, who demands to speak to the woman who claimed the coins, and who can’t be found. So Farkhondeh attempts to impersonate her.   

You can see where all this is going. Farhadi piles on the entanglements not in the service of histrionics, but instead as a way to capture life’s intricacies in all its permutations. Rahim’s plight is both comic and tragic. He knows he’s not a hero, and yet, propelled by the heroic vision most others hold of him, he begins to believe his own charade. There is at least one moment, though, when he draws the line: The media tries to exploit his son (Saleh Karimai), who has a severe stutter, for sympathy, and Rahim makes it clear he doesn’t want the boy, who clearly idolizes him, to be seen in that way. The emotional connection between father and son is in some ways the film’s most poignant aspect, especially when we can see the toll Rahim’s imbroglios are having on the child.

The film doesn’t only belong to Rahim, or his extended family. A comprehensive cross section of Iranian society comes through: the shopkeepers, small-business owners, media hounds, social-service workers, police.

Jadidi is particularly well cast as Rahim. There’s a slight opaqueness to his bearded good looks. When he smiles, which is most of the time, even when things are going badly, you can’t really fathom his true feelings. He has a con artist’s benign unreadability, and yet, he’s really not a grifter, just a man for whom a small lie has exploded into a large transgression that has taken on a life of its own.

In his own halfhearted way, Rahim is trying to behave virtuously. He wants to regain his dignity. Having been incarcerated, and facing a return to prison, he craves the respect he attracts from his brief, minor celebrity. He says he did nothing special in returning the money. Despite the humblebrag of his comments, he’s correct. But his creditor has a more cynical take: Why, he asserts, should Rahim be praised for simply doing the right thing?

What “A Hero” demonstrates is that doing the right thing is rarely as simple as it seems.

Peter Rainer is the Monitor’s film critic. “A Hero,” which includes subtitles, opens in theaters Jan. 7 and will be available on Amazon Prime Video Jan. 21. The film is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and language.