A Separation
A Separation Image
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Metascore
95 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 41 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.8 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 272 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Summary: 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. However, when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him, he realizes that there is more on the line than just his marriage. (Sony Pictures Classic)

    … Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 41 out of 41
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 41
  3. Negative: 0 out of 41
  1. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    Feb 9, 2012
    100
    The story winds its way over the material, forcing the characters and the viewers to constantly reassess everything they have seen and heard.
  2. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    Feb 29, 2012
    100
    It's a mystery wrapped inside an enigmatic nation, flawlessly acted and difficult to predict. I'm always impressed when a movie informs about a foreign culture while it entertains, and this one is powerful art in that regard.
  3. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    Feb 2, 2012
    100
    The movie has such a profound and compassionate understanding of human behavior, family ties and the way ordinary people respond when they're forced into a moral quandary, I can't imagine anyone not being transfixed by it.
  4. New Orleans Times-Picayune
    Reviewed by: Mike Scott
    Mar 2, 2012
    80
    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.

See all 41 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 63 out of 69
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 69
  3. Negative: 3 out of 69
  1. shir
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A tragedy of errors with a very easy to see political analogy:

    The old father is Iran. A country with Alzheimer forgetting its own people. An incontinent regime pissing on its youth. The unborn child stands for a free democratic Iran, killed before birth. Where? On the same street where the green revolution, the embryonic state of democracy, was killed in 2011.
    Pregnant Razieh tries to rescue the old man/the country/her income for the sake of the future generation.

    The two couples stand for the majority in Iran.
    In spite of good intentions most of the time they lie, fight or escape the country.
    Too loyal or afraid to see the truth: Rashomon in Iran.
    Very ironic that the Iranian leaders praise the movie and don't see the obvious, like fish don't notice the sea or the five blind men can't recognize the elephant they feel. Only the children see the reality and offer some hope. The little girl plays with the oxygen levels.
    The choice of Termeh in the final scene is the choice the youth in Iran stands for:
    leave the country or stay and revolt, again.

    Shirin Yazdi    … Expand
  2. Compi24
    8
    Thanks to a morally complex script, a slew of utterly fantastic performances, and an appealingly modest style of direction, "A Separation" very clearly represents some of the best filmmaking work to come out of the middle east.… Expand
  3. allmovies
    7
    Asghar Farhadi's thrilling domestic drama from Iran offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised.… Expand
  4. JerryM
    3
    False advertising. So-so movie that is barely about the core concept. It was watchable enough so it wasn't a complete waste of time. And where's the humor?… Expand

See all 69 User Reviews

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