Venezuela had a lot of poverty before the ascent of Chavez and Maduro. Now it has more. That it is a wreck of a country is patently understood by a writer and former Venezuelan named Alejandro Puyana, whose story “The Hands of Dirty Children” indicts Maduro’s Venezuela for childhood impoverishment.

Another fiction in The Best American Short Stories’ 2020 edition, “Hands” centers on two boys belonging to a vagrant group called the Crazy 9. The youngest boy is practically rejected because he soils his pants and does not have another pair, thus he stinks. Later he gets sick. . . The story is vivid and tough-minded. It is carefully wrought and pulls no punches. It makes me think that Bruce Springsteen should have written “Born in Venezuela,” not “Born in the U.S.A.”—to him, a negative thing. That’s a laugh!

Elizabeth McCracken‘s “It’s Not You” is yet another witty-sad short story about a woman, a young one, cut loose by a man. It’s a particularly scintillating one, though, which deals with the moral effects of rejection (to the “victim”: “You are young to be so unkind”) and people’s easy, unexpected behaviors and reactions. McCracken avoids both moralism and, well, easy or cheap humanism. The result is something almost captivating. “It’s Not You” was added to the Best American Short Stories (2020) anthology, and, yes—come to think of it—American hotels did model “opulence on Versailles.”

Henrik Ibsen was keenly aware that most people are not noble—or heroic. They’re simply ordinary, which is the case with Rahim (Amir Jadidi), the “hero” in the Asghar Farhadi film A Hero (2019, on Prime Video), for Farhadi knows it too. Rahim is the Krogstad, the Hjalmar, etc. of the narrative and is conscientious but heavily in debt to a man with a low opinion of him. The creditor, Bahram, sees Rahim as a ingrate, refusing to honor him, as others honor him, for returning a bag of gold coins to a stranger who lost it. He was merely doing his duty, says Bahram.

A sympathetic figure, Rahim is on a precipice. His mind fiercely resists the idea of going back to debtors’ prison. A socioeconomic reality, this, but of course it is part of the broad canvas of human misery that emerges in Farhadi’s oeuvre. Iran, where the movie is set, produces defeat because life produces defeat. Yet we happen to believe—I do, anyway—that Rahim will endure. Even social media, an important element in this superb film, will not sink him.

(In Farsi with English subtitles)

I can’t remember whether Chic Young’s comic strip Blondie was funny, but it arose at a time of high originality for comic strips—Dick Tracy and Li’l Abner were there too—and managed to be popular. Blondie (1938), the first in a series of movies adapted from the strip, is funny—a curio strictly out for laughs. Everything from the purchase, despite money problems, of furniture to Dagwood’s alleged unfaithfulness to Blondie brings about zany contretemps.

Dagwood (Arthur Lake) is too dumb to be very likable. Blondie (Penny Singleton) can be a nag, but is good-natured. Singleton has more charm than Lake, although neither overplays the assigned character. Not that every joke works, but congrats to screenwriter Richard Flournoy; and, yes, director Frank Strayer.

I saw this lark on Tubi.

Few, I believe, will disagree that there is histrionic talent in England’s Natalie Dormer. She gets the chance to do a lot in a 13-minute short by one Erin Cramer—“The Ring Cycle” (2014, available on YouTube)—with its successful blend of mild comedy and melancholy drama. Versatile Dormer is moving, suggesting a wave of emotion cresting in her but never breaking. Her character is Millie, who happily receives a wedding ring from Richard (Emun Elliott, also good) who soon discontentedly renounces the marriage. But Millie cannot discard the ring. There is economical art here—the movie is almost too short—with Cramer and Dormer making a fine team.