{"id":878348,"date":"2026-10-11T07:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878348\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T07:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:52:09","slug":"midday-meal-review-a-touching-iranian-drama-from-majid-majidi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878348\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Midday Meal’ Review: A Touching Iranian Drama from Majid Majidi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cMidday Meal<\/a>\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily about the art of cooking, but it is in part about the rituals of food, rituals which become more precious with scarcity. But more than that, the new film from director Majid Majidi<\/a> \u2014 best known for his 1997 drama \u201cChildren of Heaven\u201d, the first Iranian production ever nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar \u2014 is about the right to have food, a punishing struggle to find and provide it in the absence of governmental care. <\/p>\n

\n\tSet in the Iranian village of Goorankesh, housed in an incredibly arid and seemingly inhospitable region, the film follows schoolteacher Davoud Soulan (Mohammad Rahimi), whose job lies on precarious foundations. His livelihood is mostly privately funded \u2014 though his salary is from the ministry of education, he\u2019s only a contractor \u2014 and his benefactor has passed away. Worse still, the dead man\u2019s heirs don\u2019t wish to continue the investment that allows him to provide lunches for his students. This pause in food supply imperils the entire school due to a domino effect: With no lunch, the kids will stop showing up, which would shut the school down after an estimated two weeks.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe teacher accepts the semi-transactional nature of his relationship with his students: It\u2019s hard to fault a child for being hungry, and it\u2019s difficult not to be moved by the desperate measures that Soulan takes to keep his school open. He lives in the building to save on rent (which then goes to food), and moonlights smuggling and selling fuel to keep the school running. (Here, smuggling is a pastime than many engage in, children included.)<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it\u2019s not so simple as Soulan choosing and continuing to do the right thing. His determination to keep the school open comes with some moral compromises \u2014 and this is what makes \u201cMidday Meal\u201d more interesting, and more fraught, than expected.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conflict between pragmatism and generosity begins at a small scale and incrementally escalates. At first, it\u2019s seen in Soulan\u2019s hesitation at accepting children from other villages to his class \u2014 then in his rage at his mother for feeding guests at the potential expense of the children\u2019s meals. Between Rahimi\u2019s performance and Majidi\u2019s patient exploration of his reactions, it comes off as very human rather than as an idealistic cipher for how the director wishes the world was. Desperation shifts Soulan\u2019s actions into more dubious territory, especially as one character even calls into question how much of what he does is charity and how much is pursuit of a guaranteed salary.<\/p>\n

\n\tEither way, Rahimi balances the character\u2019s clear vulnerability with just enough ambiguity about his plans for the school, accentuated through Majidi\u2019s restrained and naturalistic approach. The director\u2019s deliberate obfuscation of Soulan\u2019s immediate intentions \u2014 beyond his desire to keep the school open \u2014 make for a fascinating character study. Rahimi plays him as a mostly sincere but deeply conflicted man, and most importantly a desperate one, capable of some rather unexpected deceptions. One of these is effectively kept hidden from scene to scene, especially once a sick old man falls into Soulan\u2019s care.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt one point, Soulan points out that the crime of fuel-smuggling is minor compared to the barons profiting off the very same \u2014 and shouldn\u2019t the motivation, the practical outcome of the act, count for something? Majidi tests the limits of this sentiment throughout \u201cMidday Meal,\u201d often to great effect. The film starts from a point of frustration about a lack of governmental care, and a community falling apart from the stressors of being left with no support. The few encounters with representatives of the law are exasperating \u2014 an officer chastises Soulan for being a bad role model for his students \u2014 though not necessarily cut and dried. Meanwhile, a member of the education department treats his organization and financing with suspicion, despite having already left him to his own devices.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is where the anger of \u201cMidday Meal\u201d comes in, an innate frustration at how so many institutions continually fail to make the simplest decision in the world: to provide for people. Majidi\u2019s matter-of-fact style of shooting underlines the cold reality that Soulan tries to navigate, and strips away any semblance of potential didacticism. For every good deed he does, there\u2019s an underside of pragmatism to it, which can seem a little ruthless.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut some good deeds do seem to come back around, in moments of grace that keep \u201cMidday Meal\u201d from being a punishingly bleak affair. Despite his seeming sternness and the board\u2019s outright negligence, the inspector sees Soulan\u2019s charity and decides to help how he can \u2014 even if the scene of the inspection itself is incredibly stressful. In a film that, at the outset, seems like it could be open-and-shut in terms of moral simplicity, there are ultimately no easy answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMidday Meal\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily about the art of cooking, but it is in part about the rituals of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[100522,88,369385,369386,206],"class_list":["post-878348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-busan-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-majid-majidi","tag-midday-meal","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}