Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbe-soori)

Critics Consensus

Well-written and powerfully acted, Fireworks Wednesday gives audiences an early, assured glimpse of writer-director Asghar Farhadi's emerging talent.

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Movie Info

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's third feature, Chahar Shanbeh Suri (aka Fireworks Wednesday), follows Rouhi (Taraneh Alidoosti), a betrothed woman who works for a local housekeeping agency. When she accepts an assignment cleaning the home of an affluent married couple about to leave on vacation, this newcomer to the household is quickly sucked into a virulent nuptial conflict of deceit, treachery, and vitriol that challenges all of her presuppositions about the nature of married life. By cloaking the events of the household (and their precipitants) in ambiguity, and constantly shifting the central perspective of the film from one character to another, Farhadi adds depth and complexity to the work and continually challenges the audience, forcing each viewer to rewrite his or her presuppositions about the characters. Though the film's title refers, in the metaphoric sense, to the explosiveness of domestic strife, the events in the film coincide with the firework-strewn Persian New Year of March 21, which lends the title a literal significance as well. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Rating:

NR
Genre:

Art House & International, Drama
Directed By:

Asghar Farhadi
Written By:

Asghar Farhadi, Mani Haghighi
In Theaters:

Mar 16, 2016 limited
On Disc/Streaming:

Apr 22, 2008
Runtime:

104 minutes
Studio:

Grasshopper Film

Cast

PanteA Bahrami
as Mrs. Simi

Hamid Farrokhnezhad
as Morteza

Taraneh Alidoosti
as Rouhi

Pantea Bahram
as Mrs. Simi

Hedye Tehrani
as Mojdeh

Matin Heydar-nia
as Amir Ali

Sahar Dolatshahi

Hooman Seyedi

Taraneh Alidousti

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Critic Reviews for Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbe-soori)

All Critics (44) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (44)

Farhadi manages to skirt the political and focus on human emotion, deception and frailty with such force that his setting and artistic restraints are rendered near irrelevant.

Jun 10, 2016 | Rating: A | Full Review…

Tom Long
Detroit News
Top Critic
Tehran on the eve of the Muslim New Year provides the backdrop for this engrossing Iranian drama about a marriage in crisis.

Apr 28, 2016 | Full Review…

Andrea Gronvall
Chicago Reader
Top Critic
[A] complex and magnificently acted melodrama ...

Apr 28, 2016 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Peter Keough
Boston Globe
Top Critic
Mournful, enigmatic and compulsively engrossing, "Fireworks Wednesday" gives viewers a chance to watch a master at work - before he was acknowledged as a master.

Apr 28, 2016 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
Top Critic
Any time you get to see a radiant bride-to-be (Taraneh Alidoosti) try on her dress and admire her reflection at the outset, you know that bliss is in the crosshairs.

Apr 21, 2016 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Matthew Lickona
San Diego Reader
Top Critic
It succeeds, as very few films do, with simultaneously presenting several distinct viewpoints without shortchanging any of them.

Apr 21, 2016 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

John Hartl
Seattle Times
Top Critic
The maturity of the mise-en-scene and the quiet confidence of the storytelling indicate a major talent, one that would flower in later and better films.

Apr 12, 2019 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…

Daniel Barnes
Dare Daniel
Fireworks Wednesday,.. stands out from Farhadi's work in this sense, using the occasional jump cut and shift in perspective to create a distrustful sense of time and space.

Aug 23, 2018 | Full Review…

Glenn Heath Jr.
San Diego CityBeat
"Fireworks Wednesday" brings an organic, sympathetic, and humanistic take on themes that have long been explored.

Aug 22, 2018 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…

Mae Abdulbaki
Movies with Mae
Though surrounded by actors of talent, especially the women, [Taraneh ] Alidousti carries the film by way of her expressive, all-seeing eyes.

Aug 18, 2017 | Full Review…

Kathy Fennessy
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
Here's a film directed by a relative newcomer, Asghar Farhadi, that feels just as fresh as films by his predecessors, yet it also turns slightly inward, getting a little closer to the more turbulent human emotions.

Mar 26, 2017 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
This is a very well acted film by the three main actors. The central part of the story (by writer-director Asghar Farhadi of 'A Separation') is powerful.

Jan 15, 2017 | Rating: B | Full Review…

Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope

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Audience Reviews for Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbe-soori)

Feb 17, 2012

After being blown away by A Separation, I decided to delve into director Asghar Farhadi's oeurve. Fireworks Wednesday, centers around familiar terrain: a broken marriage, as see through the eyes of a young housekeeper, and by extension, the audience. Farhadi's directorial style is subtly powerful: he takes his time, and allows the information to creep in at its own pace, instead of feeling a more Westernized need to shoehorn it all into the first 10 minutes. He also seamlessly shifts our point of view over and over again, confronting the audience to think twice about any preconceived notions we might have about his characters -- our assumptions, and their reliability. He's not afraid to allow a scene to develop, and he fearlessly trusts his actors. He'll direct in a more "invisible" style, but he astutely knows when to mix it up and reposition the camera, or change vantage points to inform the audience about a character's motivations. In this film, the martial strife hits a fever pitch and culminates in a show stopping long shot down an elevator, and into the street that has to be seen to be believed. I honestly don't think it could have been shot any better, and the mis-en-scene is pitch perfect. A theme that occupies Farhadi appears to be the corrosive underbelly of Persian culture, and its stifling traditional values. This story takes place on Chaharshanbe Suri (the Persian New Year) and all throughout the film, you hear fireworks in the distance. Near the end of the film, there's this great sequence where two characters are driving in the car, and through the windows you see a succession of fireworks, and fire in the streets. After dwelling on these details for a minute or two, the metaphorical meaning seeps in -- these relationships are just as combustible. It's a subtle detail, but very powerful -- and, for me, that's a great way to describe Farhadi's style: subtle, but powerful.

Jonathan H Super Reviewer