99% A Separation

All Critics (90) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (90) | Rotten (1) | DVD (2)

Asghar Farhadi's emotionally epic movie is not just a masterpiece dramatically, it is a movie dramatically of its moment.

It's small. It's real. And it's deeply moving.

This is a trenchant emotional thriller that you watch in dread, awe, and amazing aggravation.

Some films wear their artistry so lightly they appear simply to be happening, the inner workings of the story guided by an unseen hand.

The film involves its audience in an unusually direct way, because although we can see the logic of everyone's position, our emotions often disagree.

This is primarily a human story about a marriage unraveling, the husband torn between love for his daughter and devotion to his father, the daughter torn between one parent and the other.

Ambiguous and enigmatic, it revolves around the termination of a marriage in contemporary Tehran.

Farhadi's carefully wrought narrative and the ways it handles the fragile emotions of its characters truly sets it apart, not only from contemporary Iranian cinema but world cinema in general.

What counts is that talented writer/director Asghar Farhadi structures it in a culturally compelling and mysterious way, while balancing all the characters to avoid easily typed "good guys" and "bad guys."

Emotionally resonant beyond the filmmaker's own country and culture, it is a compassionate yet searingly precise film that refuses to name villains, nor to let any of its protagonists off the hook

Sometimes, in an attempt to do the best we can for the people we love, we end up wreaking irreparable damage.

I hope "A Separation" is the beginning of a new cinematic dawn for Iranian filmmakers.

[The film] puts us in the uncomfortable role of the adjudicator.

Culturally specific but universally relatable, this slowly escalating Iranian drama boasts incredibly impressive motivational clarity.

For all the stifled truths of its characters, Farhadi's film feels like a gust of brisk air.

...like being caught in a barbed-wire fence of ethical dilemmas.

Feels like a peek through a neighbor's window.

The progressively tedious atmosphere ultimately prevents the film's final scenes from making any real emotional impact...

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_separation_2011/

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