I have to write a 5 page response paper about the Iranian movie Fireworks Wednesday. What are the main points I should focus on? How should I...

You seem to have a lot of freedom in how you approach your critical response to the film, which can often be an intimidating prospect for students. My suggestion is that you find a social element that the director presents that you find particularly interesting, poignant, or else reductive, and then discuss how the director's treatment of the subject influences you.

For instance, I am a feminist critic, so I am always interested in how...

You seem to have a lot of freedom in how you approach your critical response to the film, which can often be an intimidating prospect for students. My suggestion is that you find a social element that the director presents that you find particularly interesting, poignant, or else reductive, and then discuss how the director's treatment of the subject influences you.

For instance, I am a feminist critic, so I am always interested in how directors and writers address issues of gender. More specifically, I know that Fireworks Wednesday centers on several couples and their interactions with one another. So I personally would consider examining how gender dynamics function between each couple. How does the squabbling married couple compare with the couple who will soon marry? Indeed, looking at how the director presents marriage in modern-day Iran could prove fruitful.

Another avenue that you could pursue is how the director treats social stratification in Iran. The characters represent a number of different levels of socioeconomic success. How do these characters interact, and how do issues pertaining to social status contribute to the plot of the film?

Perhaps you could even examine your own personal reaction to the film. How do the values presented differ from your own? How are they similar? Can you relate to the film? Why? What are the parallels between your culture and the portrait of Iranian life the director presents?

These are merely suggestions. Ultimately, you should write about the aspects of the film that gripped you the most. That's one of the joys of this kind of prompt: you have the power to examine the film in the ways that you find most interesting.