A Separation (2011)
Average Rating: 8.9/10
Reviews Counted: 146
Fresh: 145 | Rotten: 1
Morally complex, suspenseful, and consistently involving, A Separation captures the messiness of a dissolving relationship with keen insight and searing intensity.
Average Rating: 9.3/10
Critic Reviews: 44
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 0
Morally complex, suspenseful, and consistently involving, A Separation captures the messiness of a dissolving relationship with keen insight and searing intensity.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.3/5
User Ratings: 19,227
Movie Info
Set in contemporary Iran, A Separation is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage. Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents' home, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader. When Nader hires a young woman to assist with his father in his wife's absence, he hopes that his life will return to a normal state.
Cast
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Leila Hatami
Simin -
Peyman Moadi
Nader -
Shahab Hosseini
Hodjat -
Sareh Bayat
Razieh -
Sarina Farhadi
Termeh -
Babak Karimi
Interrogator, Judge -
Ali-Asghar Shahbazi
Nader's Father -
Shirin Yazdanbakhsh
Simin's Mother -
Kimia Hosseini
Somayeh -
Merila Zarei
Miss Ghahraii, Ms. G... -
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A Separation Trailer & Photos
All Critics (147) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (145) | Rotten (1) | DVD (3)
You cannot watch the film without feeling kinship with the characters and admitting their decency as well as their mistakes.
Top CriticDynamically shot and paced like a thriller, the film has the density and moral prickliness of a good novel.
These people seem so real they might live next door. And they probably do.
"A Separation" is a plaintive fable of the human condition that unites us.
Very few movies capture as convincingly as A Separation does the ways in which seemingly honorable decisions can lead to interpersonal conflict -- even disaster.
To say the piercing Iranian film A Separation is about divorce is a bit like saying The Wizard of Oz is about a pair of slippers.
Ambiguous endings can work for some films, but it doesn't here. Still, the powerful performances and near seamless screenplay leave little else to be desired. A Separation deserves its Oscar.
A case study in how simplicity can produce spectacular results that extend far beyond a film's budget.
[A] flawless domestic portrait.
... a complex and nuanced movie about the ... the collapse of a relationship between intelligent people of good will. It is heartbreaking and subtle, the sort of film that some folks say isn't made often or well enough by the usual Hollywood suspects.
A Separation infuses a great insight into modern Iran with a powerful insight into the human condition - this demonstrates the power and poetic potential of cinematic drama. It's a MUST see.
Writer-director Asghar Farhadi performs some kind of miracle with the tension and complexity he produces from such a simple set-up.
...riveting, enormously resonant and impressively acted...
Fahardi's accomplishment is to have brought to the screen a group of equally complex, equally flawed, and equally human characters whose only real problem is that they must live life with each other.
Offers an unwritten ending that must be decided by each viewer.
... subtlety and a sense of profound decency ...
A clever, insightful and heartfelt examination of human frailty that makes watching subtitles seem like a breeze.
It's fast paced, exciting, thrilling, edgy, moving, engaging, and - in its portrait of a justice system almost radically alien to the one I live under - absolutely fascinating.
Although the film might serve as a portrait of Iran's two conflicting social groups as reflected in the Green movement/Ahmadinejad clashes, it is much more about moral contradictions that any society has to face. A masterpiece.
It's the little moments in Farhadi's film that are its most important, speaking every bit as loudly as its big, narrative-driving moments.
If any one film can re-inject life into an entire national cinema, it's A Separation.
You may also find that some aspects of this very foreign story seem disturbingly not all that foreign.
An outsider could see these characters as misguided. That's not the reality however. Farhadi slips us into their shoes and we appreciate each of their perspectives.
Asghar Farhadi has written a superb screenplay and directs it with equal brilliance. He has managed to make a film that says something about the state of affairs in his Iran and weaves that message into an engrossing tapestry of mystery and drama.
Audience Reviews for A Separation
Super Reviewer
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- Termeh: If you don't say a lie, why you should be careful?
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- Simin: What did you do to her?
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- Razieh: [pleading] By Imam-i-Hussein [later] by Imam-u-zaman.
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- Nader: What is wrong is wrong... No matter who says or where it's written.
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- Simin: He doesn't even know you're his son.
- Nader: But I know he's my father...
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- Termeh: You said it's not serious.
- Nader: It got serious.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| I've compiled a list of comments made by "kola Fist" on the rotten review for this movie. All were replies to other people's comments. | 6 months ago | 4 |
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Foreign Titles
- Nader und Simin - eine Trennung (DE)
- Nader and Simin, A Separation (UK)
