Even the most ordinary marriages can explode like fireworks. In Fireworks Wednesday, we are plunged into an Iranian middle class family with serious marital problems. Only days before her marriage, Rouhi is hired as a maid at the family’s house. She meets Mohzde, who is out-of-balance and distraught over the suspicions that her husband is having an affair with the widow Simin next door. Rouhi is used as a spy, and is thrusted straight into the center of the maelstrom. We are systematically and intelligently led to believe that she is abnormally jealous and that she just imagines it all. But is that really so? During the last Wednesday before the Persian New Year we follow a series of confrontations as the truth gradually unfolds. Without judgement, Farhadi delves deep into the psyche of the characters without presenting straight-forward and easy answers to the complex questions that arise. Fireworks Wednesday is a realistic and intense treatment of a theme that sends shivers down both male and female spines. ls