A Separation (2011)
Average Rating: 8.9/10
Reviews Counted: 145
Fresh: 144 | 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: 42
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 0
Morally complex, suspenseful, and consistently involving, A Separation captures the messiness of a dissolving relationship with keen insight and searing intensity.
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Average Rating: 4.4/5
User Ratings: 18,409
My Rating
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.
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Cast
-
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. Ghah... -
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A Separation Trailer & Photos
All Critics (146) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (146) | Rotten (1) | DVD (3)
Dynamically shot and paced like a thriller, the film has the density and moral prickliness of a good novel.
Top CriticThese people seem so real they might live next door. And they probably do.
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.
"A Separation" moves beyond one couple's sundering marriage to reveal growing rifts between generations, ideologies, religious mind-sets, genders and classes in contemporary Iran.
Partly a courtroom drama, partly a political satire and partly a twisty thriller that gradually draws you in and becomes more engrossing with each new revelation.
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 moral tale of immense depth and sophistication, Asghar Farhadi's rightly praised A Separation remains one of the most important films of the young decade to date.
[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.
Audience Reviews for A Separation
Super Reviewer
The film begins with a couple sitting in front of a judge (who is not seen). The woman is filing for divorce, claiming that after exhaustive efforts, she has finally gotten a visa so she, her husband, and their 11 year old daughter can leave Iran and give their daughter a better life (not that their existence in Iran is all that shabby - but the promise of freedoms and all the west has to offer is enticing, especially to the mother). The husband is resisting the move as he feels he needs to care for his ailing father, who suffers from severe Altzheimers. The wife tells her husband "be reasonable, he doesn't even know you anymore", to which husband replies "but I know him".
This sets the table for all that follows, as Farhadi expertly weaves a tale where The Law comes head on against humanity and every major character acts responsibly, and yet all is still a jumble and everyone opposes everyone else, and even themselves and their own best interests.
So much is wasted by conformity - to religion and the social mores it insists upon - the wife of a poor family cannot work as a caregiver because there will not be another woman present to confirm her sanctity (a woman is NEVER supposed to be left alone in a room with a man). That the adherence to this tradition is an impetus to so much of what goes on in the film is telling. Each character tells their version of truth, and acts according to their beliefs, but in the end, in spite of their sincerity, there is tragedy and loss and misunderstanding - as if Babel is in effect and everyone is speaking, but no-one understands.
This is a very powerful film, and as it points its lens on the 11 year old girl, the film gives us time to ponder how this bright young woman is trapped in a rigid society, just as her parents and the other main characters are equally trapped. The law is an absolute, and when it is formed and cemented by fundamental religious beliefs - its inflexibility is harmful to the citizen... the age old concept of protecting the citizen by keeping them in ignorance so they won't be corrupted by that old Satanic snake of knowledge.
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. | 37 days ago | 4 |
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December 29, 2011:
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Foreign Titles
- Nader und Simin - eine Trennung (DE)
- Nader and Simin, A Separation (UK)
