A SEPARATION written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, with Peyman Moadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini and Sarina Farhadi. 123 minutes. Subtitled. A Mongrel release. Opens Friday (January 20). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNNN
A middle-class Tehran couple (Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami) attempt to separate, and in their stubbornness and lack of communication irrevocably affect the lives of those around them, including their precocious 11-year-old daughter (Sarina Farhadi), the husband’s Alzheimer’s-stricken father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) and a devout cleaning woman (Sareh Bayat).
Writer/director Asghar Farhadi has created a complex, gripping mystery that sheds light on modern Iran’s religious and class differences, not to mention its circuitous legal system. But above all it’s a human and moral drama that plays with your sympathies and poses questions of innocence and guilt while providing no pat answers.
Superbly acted and crafted, with an ending that will provoke arguments, A Separation is a great film that will haunt you.
