Fireworks Wednesday on AllMovie

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.