‘Falling House’ review: Unsubtle Iranian family drama turns a condemned home into a symbol of patriarchal control

Dir. Mohsen Gharaei. Iran/USA/Germany. 2026. 125mins

Outdated, oppressive patriarchal forces collide with a younger female generation seeking to seize both bodily autonomy and self-determination. It’s a theme that has played out across Iran during the past decade or so in various incarnations, both in real life and in cinema. In Mohsen Gharaei’s fourth feature, generational and gender conflict is explored through the prism of a family whose modest home on the outskirts of Tehran faces imminent demolition. It’s a potent, deliberately enraging picture but one which may suffer in the inevitable comparisons with Mohammad Rasoulof’s Oscar-nominated The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024).

Locked doors and closed minds fuel the mounting claustrophobia

Gharaei, who previously won Busan’s New Currents Award for his second directorial outing, 2017’s Blockage, lays on the allegorical symbolism rather generously in this Venice Horizons premiere. The father of the family, Rashid (Farhad Aslani) is a prison guard. His response to a perceived challenge to his authority as the head of the home is to literally restrict the freedoms of the female members of his household: his adult daughter Ensi (Laleh Marzban), whose dream of leaving Iran to become a model is the spark that ignites the domestic conflict; his long-suffering wife Zinat (Rima Raminfar) and his mischievous schoolgirl daughter Janan (Elena Khakbazan). 

Meanwhile, the house itself, representing the framework of autocratic patriarchy, is structurally unsound and destined to collapse imminently. That being said, Falling House may not entirely reflect the current situation in the country, as it was made in Iran before the outbreak of the war.

Our introduction to Rashid suggests that this big, shambling grizzly bear of a man is a gentle giant with a soft heart. He plays music to his prisoners as he distributes their meals, and hands out extra portions with an indulgent chuckle. An interrogation with a prison intelligence officer who is investigating a recent escape reveals that Rashid often helps his charges with their personal problems – and, he asserts, never asks for a backhander for his trouble. A glimpse of his somewhat shabby living conditions tends to back up this claim. His daughters and wife regard him lovingly and indulgently, but it’s clear that he also needs careful handling and selective exposure to the truth.

The delicate balance of the household is tipped off kilter when the intelligence officer accuses Rashid of involvement in the escape, citing as evidence a bank transfer for a substantial amount. But when Rashid tries to retrieve the money (he claims it was a returned deposit from his former landlord), Zinat is forced to admit that she has given it to Ensi so she can pursue her dream of a modelling contract in Turkey. She’s due to leave in just a few days’ time. It’s unlikely to be an accident that Ensi’s choice of career is one that places her body under intense scrutiny – albeit of a different kind from that imposed by Iran’s all-seeing morality police.

Rashid’s amiable bumbling demeanour hardens into sullen, fuming inarticulacy. Unable to win the argument verbally, he resorts to brute force, locking first Ensi then her mother and younger sister, into rooms in the condemned building. Meanwhile, the bulldozers are circling. Then Ensi has a wholly unnecessary breast cancer diagnosis, which positions her as a victim rather than a strong, autonomous character.

The set design, which combines decades of accumulated family history and love with the precarious impermanence of a home about to be shattered, captures the mounting claustrophobia of locked doors and closed minds. The use of sparse, sober orchestral music by Max Richter is understated but subliminally ominous.

Elsewhere, in a film which can be overwrought in both performances and plotting, there is less restraint. The screenplay, in particular, lurches into melodrama, with Rashid’s dogmatic refusal to back down, even when faced with the potential loss of everything he holds dear, becoming an increasingly infuriating device. Ultimately, Rashid represents a regressive way of thinking which, the film argues – none too subtly – needs to be buried before the country can move on.