Loosely based on the sixth chapter of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog and its eventual adaptation, A Short Film about Love, Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales is in no way short and hardly about anything. It is true that the film’s central theme of voyeurism is fascinating, but I can’t think of a film that rendered its interesting topic as underwhelming as this one does.
Parallel Tales is exactly as advertised: The central story interweaves the lives of six people in ways that should be a recipe for delicious, chaotic drama. Yet, Farhadi’s latest is bogged down by its repetitiveness and refusal to offer anything new to a story about imagination and voyeurism. What we’re left with hangs a little too long onto a thin rope of painful repetition, false hope, and jaded screenwriting.
The Actors Hold Interest, But Parallel Tales Is A Far Lesser Film Than It Could Have Been
Isabelle Huppert stars as Sylvie, a down-and-out writer grasping for any glimmer of inspiration for her new novel. If it isn’t good, old-fashioned writer’s block, it must be the hoards of books, paper, and other junk clouding her creativity even when the smoke in her lungs doesn’t. Her sister Laurence (India Hair) is desperate to get Sylvie out of their family home, so she can turn her profits into income and stability for her unborn child. Sylvie hires the houseless Adam (Adam Bessa) to help out after he retrieves Laurence’s wallet from a pickpocket.
These small acts of desperation are the start of what promises (and, spoiler alert, later fails) to be an entertainingly chaotic string of events that tie all these stories together. Sylvie sets her sights on her neighbors Nita (Virginie Efira), Pierre (Vincent Cassel), and Christophe (Pierre Niney), conjuring up a wild affair. On paper, I’m sure it bore suspense, intrigue, and drama; on film, it’s disheveled, and it says close to nothing about the human interactions we’re forced to sit through.
For all its hiccups and mishaps, it’s a wonder that Parallel Tales managed to keep enough of my attention at all, but the stunning cast and their performances come through. Their ability to breathe life into characters that rarely escape the ‘real or fake’ pendulum is fascinating to say the least. I found Vincent Cassel to be a staple in this picture. He works all angles of his role(s) with the piercing concern and appropriate body performance required, all while requiring levels of empathy from his viewers that may seem foreign in a film like this.
What we’re left with hangs a little too long onto a thin rope of painful repetition, false hope, and jaded screenwriting.
Virginie Efira is also a wonder in her double roles as Nita, the reserved yet friendly and loyal wife to Pierre, and the free-spirited and confident Anna. Had it not been for the script’s limitations on her characters (save one very real, very heavy moment as a woman when it comes to workplace harassment), Parallel Tales could have truly been something special. Lastly, part of me wants to believe Huppert’s limited role here (despite taking up a good amount of screen time) is due to Farhadi wanting other characters to come to life. But it’s Isabelle Huppert!
As much as it pains me to say, Parallel Tales is kind of like an underwhelming soap opera. You can throw it on in the background while doing house chores, then come back to it an hour later and not miss a thing. For the most part, that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad watch – just a repetitive and disappointing one. And for all the great performances in this feature, it’s sad to think that so little care can be put into a film and its characters, when that film could have easily been the talk of this year’s Cannes.
Parallel Tales screened at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
- Release Date
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May 14, 2026
- Runtime
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140 minutes
- Director
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Asghar Farhadi
- Writers
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Massoumeh Lahidji
- Producers
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Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Lila Yacoub, Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Carole Baraton, Maciej Musiał, Stefano Massenzi, Yohann Comte, Pierre Mazars, Yousra Filali
Cast
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Virginie Efira
Anna / Nita
