– CANNES 2026: Asghar Farhadi goes full French soap opera in this drama starring Isabelle Huppert – and no foley artist is safe
Isabelle Huppert in Parallel Tales
The signs were there. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has already made films in languages that aren’t his own – The Past and the Spanish-set Everybody Knows – and the results weren’t great. That being said, Parallel Tales is a new low for a filmmaker capable of great heights.
This Cannes competition pick is inexplicably overlong, sentimental and, yes, creepy, as everyone spies on everyone. Someone could lay the blame on Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski and his collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz (who actually died on the day of the premiere), as this whole thing is supposed to reference their work, especially Dekalog and A Short Film About Love. But it’s still Farhadi’s decision to make this film today, and to make it so very long. “It’s dated,” hears Isabelle Huppert’s character when she brings her new novel to her editor – and she decides to ignore that comment. Talk about art mirroring life.
Huppert’s Sylvie is, well, the first creep in this soapy story. She is living off cans of tuna and lights cigarettes with a toaster – to the delight of the audience, it has to be said – so it’s a miracle that she hasn’t set her nasty apartment on fire. Her niece seems to think so, too, so she picks up a homeless boy, Adam (Adam Bessa), who helped her retrieve her almost-stolen wallet, and gives him the job. It’s hard to believe, but things only get sillier from there.
Sylvie doesn’t like people very much, but she writes about them. Her solution? Spying on three glamourous neighbours, who – get this – are foley artists, and inventing a twisted ménage à trois. It’s not true, obviously, but Adam soon turns into creep number two, borrowing Sylvie’s telescope and stalking a girl they are watching (Virginie Efira). He interrupts her budget lunches, lurks on the streets and even hands her a copy of Sylvie’s rejected novel, claiming he’s the writer behind it. Soon, the foley artists can’t help but recreate some of its parts, all the while recording the sounds of animals devouring each other in the wild. Talk about life mirroring art.
For a film that should be a comedy of errors, of sorts, this is all very unpleasant – even without all the rats running around Sylvie’s flat. Farhadi doesn’t have the light touch necessary to make this mess work, and the threat of sexual violence does not make for good entertainment. Frankly, he pays more attention to foley tricks – Celery! Sand! – than to any of these people. There’s a second here where it starts to feel like another take on The Talented Mr. Ripley, but instead of saying something interesting about deception or voyeurism, it just makes you want to take a shower.
Parallel Tales is a French-Belgian-Italian co-production staged by Memento Production, and it is sold internationally by Charades.
