Voyeurism in cinema is a double-edged sword—it can either captivate or alienate, depending on how it’s wielded. Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales leans heavily on this trope, but personally, I think it’s a misstep that feels more like a tangled web than a compelling narrative. What makes this particularly fascinating is how a director known for his razor-sharp moral dramas (A Separation, The Salesman) seems to lose his footing here. Farhadi’s attempt to explore the blurred lines between truth and imagination ends up feeling aimless, as if the film itself is peering through a telescope but can’t quite focus on what it’s seeing.
One thing that immediately stands out is the film’s bloated runtime—2 hours and 20 minutes—which, in my opinion, is a glaring issue. Compare it to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Love, the 86-minute masterpiece that inspired Parallel Tales. Kieślowski’s work is a masterclass in narrative distillation, zeroing in on just two characters with surgical precision. Farhadi, on the other hand, introduces too many parallel narratives, diluting the emotional impact. It’s like watching a painter start with a clear vision but then smear the canvas with too many colors.
What many people don’t realize is that voyeurism in cinema often thrives on restraint. Hitchcock’s Rear Window or Haneke’s Caché succeed because they maintain a tight focus, letting the tension simmer. Parallel Tales, however, feels overstuffed. Isabelle Huppert’s Sylvie, the novelist who spies on her neighbor, should be the heart of the story, but her character gets lost in the shuffle. Instead, the film shifts its weight to Adam, a homeless man who becomes entangled in Sylvie’s fictional world. This, to me, feels like a missed opportunity. Sylvie’s obsession could have been a rich exploration of creativity and isolation, but the film never fully commits to her perspective.
A detail that I find especially interesting is Farhadi’s emphasis on sound—a clever twist on the voyeuristic theme. The character of Anna (or Nita, as we later learn) works as a foley artist, crafting sounds that Sylvie incorporates into her fiction. This raises a deeper question: Can fiction ever truly capture reality, or does it distort it? Farhadi seems to be asking this, but the execution falls flat. The romantic triangle involving Anna, Christophe, and Pierre feels undercooked, like a side dish that never quite complements the main course.
If you take a step back and think about it, Parallel Tales is a film that tries to do too much. It wants to be a psychological drama, a meditation on creativity, and a commentary on the nature of truth—all at once. The result is a narrative that feels more like a writing exercise than a cohesive story. Even the subplot involving Sylvie’s mother’s tragic past feels tacked on, as if the film is grasping for emotional depth it never quite achieves.
What this really suggests is that even the most talented filmmakers can stumble when they lose sight of simplicity. Farhadi’s earlier works succeeded because they grounded complex moral questions in relatable human stories. Parallel Tales, by contrast, feels detached, more interested in its own cleverness than in its characters. The ensemble cast, including Virginie Efira and Vincent Cassel, delivers solid performances, but they’re let down by a script that never quite knows what it wants to say.
From my perspective, the film’s biggest flaw is its inability to commit to a single narrative thread. It’s as if Farhadi is so enamored with the idea of parallel tales that he forgets to give us a reason to care about any of them. The result is a film that feels intellectually ambitious but emotionally hollow.
In the end, Parallel Tales is a reminder that even the most intriguing premises can falter without discipline. Personally, I think Farhadi’s next project should take a page from Kieślowski’s book: less is more. Sometimes, the most powerful stories are the ones that stay focused, letting the audience fill in the gaps. Parallel Tales, unfortunately, leaves us with too many gaps and not enough to fill them with.
