A Separation Review

Farhadi writes like a prosecutor building both cases at once. A husband pushes a pregnant caregiver out of his apartment, or does not; she was already injured, or was not; she left his father alone tied to a bed, or had a reason nobody will state aloud because stating it would cost her the claim. Every subsequent scene turns on which withheld fact surfaces next, and each character's silence is motivated by something recognizable, faith, money, shame, a daughter listening in the next room.

Peyman Moaadi and Leila Hatami play a marriage that has run out of arguments, and Sareh Bayat's caregiver carries a religious terror that is treated with complete seriousness rather than sociology. The dialogue is the achievement, overlapping and evasive, with the crucial information always arriving as an aside. Mahmoud Kalari's handheld camera is deliberately anonymous, shooting through doorframes and glass with no interest in beauty, which serves the film but leaves it visually plain. The final shot, holding on a corridor while a daughter's answer stays offscreen, hands the verdict to you.