Asghar Farhadi turns to voyeurism and imagination in Parallel Tales, but this review argues the film loses its grip long before its ideas come into focus.

The critical signal frames the movie as a sharp departure from Farhadi’s familiar neorealist dramas, with Isabelle Huppert playing a French novelist who watches the apartment across the street. On paper, that setup promises tension, secrecy, and moral unease. Reports indicate the film instead sprawls into a meandering, amorphous exercise that circles its themes without building much urgency.

The premise points toward suspense, but the review suggests the film drifts into a head game that never tightens.

The source connects Parallel Tales to the sixth episode of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog, a story about a young man spying on a woman across the street and falling in love with her. That lineage matters because it sets a high bar. According to the review, Dekalog: Six drew power from suspense, while Parallel Tales delivers stretches of inertia instead, turning a provocative concept into something oddly distant.

Key Facts

  • The film stars Isabelle Huppert as a French novelist.
  • The story centers on watching an apartment across the street.
  • The review describes the film as a muddled, meandering take on voyeurism and imagination.
  • The source says the movie draws loosely from Dekalog: Six.

The review does not fault Farhadi for trying something new. In fact, the signal explicitly acknowledges that he need not stay locked inside one mode of filmmaking. The problem, as presented here, lies in execution: a promising premise about people spying on each other never develops the tension or clarity needed to make its psychological games land. The result, sources suggest, feels less like a daring reinvention than a concept left unresolved.

That matters because Farhadi’s name carries expectations of precision, pressure, and human conflict sharpened to a point. If early critical reaction holds, Parallel Tales may prompt a broader conversation about how far an established director can push into abstraction without losing the narrative discipline that built his reputation. The next step will come as more critics and audiences weigh whether the film’s strange, voyeuristic design reveals hidden depth or simply confirms a rare misfire.