It Was Just an Accident ★★★

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On the Road with Vahid

Victims of torture by the Iranian religious regime, 2 men and 2 women seek justice, revenge, and closure while on an Iranian road trip. Winner of the most recent Palme d’Or at Cannes, “It Was Just an Accident” is unsettling but ultimately disappointing, as it relies on the contrast between the viciousness of past encounters with the regime and a madcap day in a white van driving around Tehran.

The van runs out of gas. The 5 "buddies" in this road trip caper, the bride still in her wedding dress, push it along a real Iranian highway in Jafar Panahi's clandestinely filmed attack on the regime.

Director and writer Jafar Panahi, who now has won the trifecta of major international cinema awards (Cannes, Berlin, Venice), frequently uses levity in his subtle and not-so-subtle filmic attacks on Iran’s totalitarian government. The attacks have been sufficiently obvious to land him in prison in 2010 and 2022.

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After a man saves a husband’s pregnant wife (and the newborn son), the husband’s outraged response is “You touched my wife!”

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One of the pleasures of his most recent work is the way his critiques of the regime pop up in the ordinary course of events: the corruption of security guards at a parking ramp, the mouthing of religious shibboleths to justify immoral behavior (“If you’re guilty, you deserved your sentence. If you’re not, you’ll get your reward in heaven”). After a man saves a husband’s pregnant wife (and the newborn son), the husband’s outraged response is “You touched my wife!”

Five--or maybe 4--angry people, debating the fate of the body in a box in a van.

Left to right, Shiva (Mariam Afshari), Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), Ali (Majid Panahi),

Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), and their sort-of leader, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri).

The script follows a tried and true road-trip-caper narrative: a man gathers buddies one at a time to join him in a venture. In the gathering, we learn the strengths, weaknesses, and peculiarities of the characters. Unexpected events set the crew roiling, be it encountering security guards as the group is yelling loudly about their plans or running out of gas on a busy highway and pushing the van—with a body in the back.

Panahi also uses a major story device: doubt. Is the man they’ve kidnapped (he’s the body in a box in the van) “Peg Leg” (Ebrahim Azizi), or an innocent they’ve mistaken for their nemesis? As in 1957’s “12 Angry Men,” each person’s moral values are on display as they consider guilt or innocence and decide what to do.

Yet another uncomfortable and unexpected encounter—this time with 2 security guards. Trying to come up with a cover are 4 of the "buddies":

Ali (M. Panahi), Hamid (Ali Elyasmehr), Vahid (Mobasseri), and Shiva (Afshari).

Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), the instigator of the escapade, is the one who discovers and kidnaps the maybe torturer. Vahid is not a killer, but he is capable of acting outside his ethical norms when triggered by the trauma of the past. Shiva (Mariam Afshari), a photographer, insists that they not descend to the tactics of the regime, that they do not kill or torture. Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), wearing her long white wedding gown and veil throughout (she’s been approached while posing for wedding photos), needs to “let off steam” from her vile treatment as a very young woman, which included the threat of rape. Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) is the “madman,” the hothead who just wants to kill the guy for revenge. Add to this mix Goli’s fiancé Ali (Majid Panahi), who mostly goes along for the ride, while standing for those who did not fight the regime. As the 5 develop their relationships with each other—and with the kidnapped man—it is Shiva (a solid performance by Afshari) who becomes the audience’s touchstone.

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The marrying of comedy and morally abhorrent deeds is tricky, at best.

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The marrying of comedy and morally abhorrent deeds is tricky, at best. Roberto Benigni succeeded with “Life Is Beautiful” (“La vita è bella,” 1997), set in a Nazi concentration camp. As did Taika Waititi in “Jojo Rabbit” (2019, Hitler, again). Here, Panahi’s effort falls short, possibly because, while a comedy, there is no true comic character, or because we don’t have the distance we have from World War II; the nightmare of the Iranian regime is ongoing. And possibly because, while doubt creates space to articulate moral issues, it also compromises that space. We are simply not sure the horrific acts we are learning about were perpetrated by the person in the box.

Sound is critical to the story and the film. There is no soundtrack, no extraneous music. And sound is partly how the 4 identify their torturer. It is a particular sound that echoes in the last scene, carried over into the credits, and that tells us how the story ends. A story that begins with revenge, and ends with a tap, tap, tap.

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She says: Panahi won the Palme d’Or because of his politics, his incredibly brave stand against the Regime in Iran, where he still lives.

He says: Filmmakers take note: avoid suicide, alcoholism—and kidnapping.

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Date: 2025

Director: Jafar Panahi

Starring: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, Majid Panahi

Country: Iran (filmed without permission), France, Luxembourg

Language: Persian, subtitled in English

Runtime: 103 minutes

Other Awards: 11 wins (including the Palme d’Or at 2025’s Cannes Film Festival), and 10 other nominations; submitted by France as its entry for the 2026 Oscars’ Best International Feature Film.