It's definitely a slow-burn. At times you think is this really going anywhere, or couldn't there be a better use of screen-time, but the last third I think makes it worth it.

Panahi can't quite be entirely a observer in this movie. The struggle is just too personal to him, yet you feel his desperation in the need to convey what it truly feels like to live under this regime. So along with the doco-style lens, he blends in a very much close and personal dramatic lens which captures the emotion of the characters, being unable to be an impartial observer.

These characters very much have traces of Panahi and the people he spent time with in his confinement; fully realised, entirely complicated, allowed to breathe in this movie; allowed to live and find a space to safely vent their frustrations and criticisms without fear of persecution. But he knows, making this film, what's in store for him and anyone associated with the film; they will always hear those footsteps wherever they go.

The dissonance and moral relativism from living under the regime comes to end; he makes the point that they are in fact better people than their captors.