Given its title, 2024’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig sounds like it’ll deliver a pretentious drama. Instead, it delivers a dark look at oppression in modern-day Iran and how it impacts one family.

Attorney Iman (Missagh Zareh) gets promoted to the position of investigating judge at Tehran's Revolutionary Court. He quickly learns that his superiors expect him to simply rubber-stamp their decisions.

As mass unrest blossoms around Iran, Iman’s wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and teen daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and (Sana Setareh Maleki) find themselves caught up in the violence. This leads to conflicts at home and threats to the family.

The Blu-ray’s liner notes tout that Seed was “shot entirely in secret”. Needless to say, the authorities in Iran don’t much care for art that criticizes their choices.

Due to this factor, director Mohammad Rasoulof has found himself imprisoned multiple times, and this threatened the production of Seed. As such, Rasoulof needed to film the movie in a surreptitious manner to avoid government persecution.

That offers a pretty unusual backstory. Does Seed succeed as a film and not just an admirable exercise in opposition to an oppressive regime?

To some degree, though the tale behind its creation remains more compelling. Rasoulof’s efforts to make work like this and escape imprisonment could turn into a pretty compelling movie in itself.

I do find a lot to like about Seed, but Rasoulof shoots himself in the foot via the movie’s running time. At 167 minutes, the film comes perilously close to the three-hour mark, and that seems far too long for what adds up to a fairly simple story of family tensions.

The choice to view the bigger picture through Iman’s family makes sense. I tend to feel that narratives about larger movements present the greatest impact when they focus on a few characters and don’t try to cover everything.

While I appreciate the scope, the end result tends to evolve too slowly to work. Some of the exposition related to the clan fares well, but Rasoulof just doesn’t know how to make the plot move ahead as it should.

Seed also goes the Chekhov route and makes a primary story beat revolve around a gun. When Iman gets his new gig, he also receives a firearm for his own protection.

Rasoulof provides approximately 283 shots of this gun in the first act, and we know this means it’ll play a significant role as the movie develops. The depiction of the weapon seems so obvious and heavy-handed that it inspires eyerolls.

As an outsider, the glimpses of Iranian society seem educational, and not just due to our view of the abuses. It also becomes interesting to see how much the West influences that society, as much as the leaders want to keep out those elements.

But I still can’t get past the movie’s extreme running time and Rasoulof’s inability to fill that space in a productive manner. Eventually Seed develops into more of a thriller, one that tends to revolve around Iman’s increasing paranoia after his gun disappears.

In theory, this ratchets up tension – a factor largely absent much of the time – but because it offers a shift in character focus, it doesn’t really work. For most of the first two acts, Seed concentrates primarily on Najmeh and the daughters, with Iman seen semi-infrequently.

After controversies with the firearm arise, though, Seed spends far more time with Iman. This shift doesn’t help the story, as instead, it makes Seed feel like two separate movies awkwardly joined together.

With some editing, Seed could become a fairly intriguing look at family life in an oppressive nation. But at nearly three hours, the film just lacks the substance it needs to keep us with it.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Expect a solid image here.

Overall sharpness satisfied. A little softness impacted some wider shots but most of the movie appeared distinctive and concise.

The movie lacked jaggies or moiré effects, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws failed to materialize.

The film’s palette leaned heavily toward orange/amber and blue/teal. While these choices felt uncreative, the disc replicated them well.

Blacks seemed dark and tight, while shadows generally worked fine. A few segments came across as a little dense, but those remained in the minority. For the most part, this turned into a strong visual presentation.

Don’t expect much from the movie’s restrained DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Though the flick offered something of a thriller, this didn’t mean it boasted a lot of fireworks.

Occasional scenes opened up to a moderate degree, but most of the mix focused on general ambience. This worked fine for the narrative.

Audio quality felt positive, with speech that came across as natural and concise. Music showed nice range and clarity.

Effects lacked much to do but they nonetheless demonstrated accurate elements. This became a “B-“ mix due to its lack of ambition, but it nonetheless suited the story at hand.

The Making of The Seed of the Sacred Fig runs three minutes, 43 seconds. It brings notes from director Mohammad Rasoulof.

We learn of the extreme precautions the filmmaker and crew needed to use to shoot Seed without detection from the oppressive Iranian regime. Because this topic offers so much intrigue, it disappoints me that we get such a brief discussion of the challenges.

The disc opens with ads for Presence and The Monkey. We also get the trailer for Seed.

Shot in secrecy by a director frequently punished for his work, the backstory behind the creation of The Seed of the Sacred Fig becomes much more intriguing than the movie itself. Given the nature of the production, I want to like Seed, but the end product seems too long-winded and thin to really work. The Blu-ray comes with very good visuals, decent audio and minor bonus materials. Despite some promising elements, Seed just doesn’t click on a consistent basis.