90
It proves to be not just interesting in how it foreshadows the filmmaker's more mature works, but also a gripping piece of storytelling in its own right.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
83
Fireworks Wednesday carefully, organically introduces its characters, then lets the audience try to discern what they’re withholding.
60
[Farhadi and cowriter Mani Haghighi] prove to be stronger on atmosphere than on structure, aided by crisp, unnerving camerawork.
88
Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard
Asghar Farhadi's 2006 film interrogates the tensions between tactility and vision in complex ways.
100
Few Iranian films have tried to realistically depict both the urban middle and lower classes, and fewer still with the complexity of story telling and depth of characterization in Asghar Farhadi’s impressive third feature, Fireworks Wednesday.
75
New York Post by Farran Smith Nehme
Farhadi brings keen discernment to this unraveling marriage, and a third-act revelation packs a wallop.
88
RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire
As [Farhadi] does to such masterful effect in “A Separation,” here he constructs a story that keeps revealing new thematic and psychological layers, ones that often come to light through the shifting of perspective from one character to another, a technique that deepens our sympathy for the people we’re watching to the point of our realizing that, as in Renoir, “everyone has their reasons.”
80
As with all of Farhadi's films there's a frailty behind his characters, with their insecurities and moral dilemmas bubbling to the surface as the director slowly raises the temperature in this pressure cooker of domestic strife. Nervous editing and sinuous cinematography also give the impression that Farhadi is choreographing his stars rather than directing them.
80
This is a thoroughly engrossing and densely textured drama, showing Farhadi's cool skill in dissecting the Iranian middle classes and the unhappiness of marriage.
80
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
As with Mr. Farhadi’s other films, every detail of speech and body language resonates.