The story opens when Laura (Cruz), who has emigrated to Argentina, takes her daughter Irene (Carla Campri) back to her hometown near Madrid for a family wedding. The young girl feels sick and takes to her bed during the festivities. When they go to wake her, they find that she is gone. When a substantial ransom demand is made, they realize that she has been kidnapped and Laura tries to come to terms with the fact that she has to try to raise the ransom without informing the police. At that point, the whole family begins to be torn apart, with suspicions falling on the wedding staff and gradually spilling over to members of the family.

Carla Campra, Penélope Cruz, Sergio Castellanos and Javier Bardem

The intrigue swirls around the three main characters Alejandro (Ricardo Darín), Laura’s husband who flies in from Argentina to help, Paco (Bardem), a farmhand with whom Laura had a long-standing relationship before she left for Buenos Aires and Laura herself who feels responsible.   It is Paco (Bardem) who holds the key to the situation. He bought Laura out of her vineyard when she needed money, even though he was only a labourer. To this day, that sale is a sore point among some family members who are convinced he paid a poor price.  But now, he is the only one who can help.

Javier Bardem, Eduard Fernández, Ricardo Darín and Penélope Cruz.

Javier Bardem, who plays Paco, has said that despite Farhadi shooting this film in Spanish, (a language he does not speak), “He knows when you’re lying… he doesn’t know the language, but he knows that the words were not organically spoken”.  His search for authenticity was such that Penélope Cruz even ended up in an ambulance after one particularly intense and demanding scene.

Asghar Farhadi is best known for his last three films that include the massively successful “A Separation (2011)” and “The Salesman” (2015), which were both awarded numerous awards and nominations, including the first Oscars awarded to an Iranian director.  These films show that this is a director who has an innate understanding of the painful entanglements that develop within families and within the communities of a small town, pulling families apart, aggravated by class and social tensions.   

This is complex and believable thriller. Anyone who has a large family would understand the tensions   that emerge under stress. Farhadi’s careful selection of a superb cast adds a vital dimension to the quality of the production. It is every parent’s nightmare come true and Farhadi does not play chicken. There is a deep intensity and one can feel the breaking point of the players as secrets and dark emotions bubble up to the surface.

Even after the film is over, you find yourself going over the scenes in your mind, searching for the clues you must have missed. It is a film that could easily be watched more than once. This film may not have achieved the heights of “A Separation” but it is very watchable and the tension is maintained. The numerous cast all bring their own interests to bear in the story, with desires and secrets that pull families apart as much as binding them together, complicating an already messy nest. Even when it appears to be resolved, questions still remain.  Laura’s return has, effectively, put salt on some old wounds and the mutual resentment can still be felt, if not seen.  The viewer is aware that there is yet more under the surface, more unknown entanglements and secrets that are simmering away.

Cruz’s proves her value with a powerful and award- winning performance as Laura, as she tries to stop herself falling into total despair as the leads they are trying to follow gradually run out.  She manages to forcefully convey her anger and despair so that we partake of her grief, while at the same time steering clear of melodrama.  In this film, Farhadi manages at all times to remain intriguing, especially in the intricacies of the family relationships, where his understanding of how some people can never shake off old grievances or love can poison the present.

 “… My strength,” said Cruz in an interview, “came from thinking about and feeling for all the mothers who have feared losing their children from illness or war or situations like the one in the movie...This was a personal homage to those women, and that gave me the strength every day to do it. I didn’t even talk to Asghar about that, but it was my secret nutrition for everyday survival.”

Farhadi took three weeks to rehearse the actors and guide them through the characters they were playing. For this purpose, they were asked to perform in different settings that did not form a part of the film, in order to understand where these characters were coming from. As Bardem says: “He doesn’t want you to play the scene… but to go through the experience of it.”

The film is a French/Spanish/Italian co-production and has been showered with nominations at Cannes, The Goya Awards and others, winning a Best Actress Award for Penélope Cruz.

EVERYBODY KNOWS (2018) IS ON GENERAL RELEASE.

Writer/Director               Asghar Farhadi

Producers:                        Álvaro Longorio / Alexandre Mallet-Guy

DOP                                   José Luis Alcaine

Editor                                Hayedeh Safiyari

Music                                Javier Limón/ Nella Rojas ( song)

Cast :                                 Penélope Cruz. Javier Bardem. Eduard Fernández, Ricardo Darín, Bárbara Lenni, Carla Campri, Sergio Castellanos.