A Sep­a­ra­tion

Rest­less for a bet­ter life and frus­trat­ed by her hus­band Nader’s unwill­ing­ness to emi­grate, Simin (Leila Hata­mi) moves in with her moth­er, leav­ing Nad­er (Pey­man Moaa­di) to cope with a young daugh­ter and senile father. To watch over the old man while he’s at work, Nad­er hires Razieh (Sareh Bay­at,) a preg­nant woman whose hus­band Hod­jat (Sha­hab Hos­sei­ni) is in and out of jail due to mount­ing debts.

The first act presents an engag­ing pic­ture of gen­er­al­ly like­able peo­ple strug­gling to do the right thing in a world that hur­tles along at a fran­tic, west­ern­ised pace. When Nadir’s father soils him­self, Razieh calls a reli­gious helpline to find out if it’s a sin for her to change his under­wear. And Nad­er, despite the reg­u­lar roast­ings he gets from Simin, makes quite sure his daugh­ter grows up to be just as inde­pen­dent and capa­ble by teach­ing her to pump petrol and stand up for herself.

But the ​‘sep­a­ra­tion’ of the title isn’t just between hus­band and wife. It’s also between class­es, as rep­re­sent­ed by the well-edu­cat­ed, near-sec­u­lar Nad­er on the one hand, and the unem­ployed, unskilled, god-fear­ing Hod­jat on the oth­er. These are the also the lives they bequeath their chil­dren: one nur­tured and with a future full of options; the oth­er neglect­ed and bound for the same drudgery as her par­ents. This divi­sion becomes appar­ent when Razieh has a mis­car­riage and Nad­er, held respon­si­ble and accused of mur­der, finds him­self fac­ing a pos­si­ble prison sentence.

The con­se­quent claims and coun­ter­claims see both fam­i­lies sucked into a fright­en­ing Kafkaesque bureau­cra­cy. As the sto­ry unfolds, reli­gion, hon­our and jus­tice are all put under the spot­light. A Sep­a­ra­tion is a grip­ping expe­ri­ence, far from hope­less or depress­ing thanks to the pre­ci­sion of Asghar Farhadi’s writ­ing, the spry­ness of his direc­tion and the gen­eros­i­ty of his out­look, which can even spare a moment of sym­pa­thy for the police inter­roga­tor bur­dened with the case. The cast is uni­form­ly excel­lent, adding to the appeal of this shrewd and sub­tle film.