Forced to leave their building in central Tehran, which is in danger of collapsing due to work being done on it, actors Emad and Rana move into the apartment of a friend. But as the couple prepares to start the performances of a play, an incident disrupts their life: a stranger enters their home and assaults Rana. In seeking the culprit, Emad discovers the truth about the former tenant of their new apartment.

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It’s hard to see a film by Asghar Farhadi without expecting a shock at the level of A Separation or The Past, his most beautiful and powerful films, which were praised by both audiences and critics. The Salesman thus suffers directly: although far from being ordinary or a failure, the new film by the Iranian filmmaker is still less powerful than expected. It uses the same formula of thriller-like melodrama to autopsy not just his country, but especially the complexity of relationships, helped along by excellent performances by Shahab Hosseini (Best Actor at Cannes) and Taraneh Alidoosti. But in the final part, the movie regains the emotional nuances, contradictions, and silences heavy with meaning that prove Farhadi’s talent as a writer.