An average movie

I have been member of a film club for more than 6 years and I never missed a single movie except for this one so I was quite eager to check it out. Well, first of all, it was pretty impressive to see Iranian director Asghar Farhadi directing a movie in Spain with such a convincing result as if the guy had spent all his life there. He already achieved the same thing with ‘Le passé’ which felt like such a genuine French movie. Furthermore, the cast was composed of famous Spanish actors (Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem) and some other actors unknown to me but they all delivered some solid performances. Unfortunately, I had a hard time with the story though. First of all, I thought it was rather unlikely that someone would manage to snatch a teenager in a house full of people during a wedding without anyone noticing. Maybe it would have been more convincing if they had displayed the actual kidnapping. Then, another thing that bothered me was how this family handled this situation. I mean, if you have the money, paying would seem to be indeed a safer option but, if you don’t, for me, it would be a no-brainer to go directly to the police. Finally, there was this big discussion about why on Earth should Paco pay the ransom? Well, again, it seemed to be a no-brainer because, in my opinion, it was actually the only decent thing to do since the only other alternative was to let this poor girl getting killed. Finally, most of the duration was basically about some gossiping they had about each other while it was so obvious that most of them had nothing to do with the kidnapping. On the other hand, it could be true that, during such crisis, people might turn against each other like they did in this movie. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Asghar Farhadi’s work.