‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review — A desperately tense Iranian thriller

A review of the new film, in theaters November 27, 2024

The Seed of the Sacred Fig opens with on-screen text that gives context to its titular metaphor. Bird droppings bring fig seeds to the branches of other trees; as they grow, their roots reach down toward the ground. Once the fig tree is able to plant itself, it then strangles the host.

Those seeds, it’s soon clear, are the seeds of revolution. The film is about a man named Iman (Missagh Zareh), a government employee who has recently been promoted. He’s now an investigating judge in Tehran, a new job that comes with a higher salary and better housing for his family. That’s a relief, because he currently lives in a small apartment with his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and their two daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki).

The new job also comes with a gun. Iman conducts his job in secret, fearful of what should happen if his identity were to be revealed to a populace frought with anti-regime sentiment. It’s a simmering sentiment that threatens to explode into violence. Sure enough, protests soon fill the streets of Iran, crowds of students and women agitating for the end of the repressive, oppressive theocracy they live under. Iman is soon swamped with…