Farhadi's breakout film falls flat

Everybody Knows (2018) marks a big shift in the career of Iranian writer-director Asgar Farhadi: first film outside of his native Iran (the setting is Spanish wine country, tho never explicitly identified)? First work w/ major world talents (Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem), and I would guess his highest-budget film and first major release via Netflix and despite all this - plus "nominations" for many top awards this film is a disappointment - especially on the heels of his fantastic film The Salesman. IN short, the film depicts a family gathering for a wedding, and during the post-nuptial celebrations Cruz's 16-year-old daughter starts to feel woozy, goes off to be early, and disappears - as a ransom note and some news clippings about kidnappings arrive in Cruz's in-box. Over the course of this complicated film - and I must say that Farhadi's strength lies not in his setting forth a clear plot w/ well delineated characters - we watch the struggle of this not-wealthy family to gather the money to meet the ransom demand. The questions raised are: Why would the kidnappers choose this child to nab? Why would they target this family, which has no significant wealth of stature? And who dunnit  (as we never see the kidnappers until the denouement)? I think most viewers will find the answers to these questions to be require far more willing suspension of disbelief than I was able to give: It's one of those criminal acts that maybe could have succeeded if 500 things had gone as planned but that in reality would have failed in any # of ways. Although this film is over all emotionally cold - particularly as we never see the kidnapped girl during her ordeal - I will say that Bardem and Cruz do a fine job w/ the roles they're given - Cruz in particular, who is her beautiful self at the outset and, over the course of the film, crumples into a state of loss and despair. All this said, good luck to Farhadi, and I hope he will find his footing again and give us some great film dramas like The Salesman and A Separation.