A Separation (2011)

Rated PG

A Separation 2

Asghar Farhadi’s fair and balanced examination of a crumbling marriage (two crumbling marriages, really) is a tremendous accomplishment. Farhadi deals in ethics, morality, sexism, secrets and a lot of lies. He’s certainly got the cast to pull all of that off. His Oscar-winner shows empathy for all his middle-class and working-class Iranian characters and finds fascinating peel-back-the-layers ways to show the humanity in all of them. A Separation is also an unusual courtroom movie that doesn’t rely on big acting moments in a mahogany-filled room. So don’t shove people out of your apartment or accuse them of petty theft. Just settle in for the 392nd Ellises’ Analysis, but forgive us off the bat for how we butchered Iranian names as badly as we did.

Well, Actually: According to the IMDb, they’re speaking Persian in this film, not Farsi or Urdu.

Sparkplug Coffee is the perfect drink when you’re stressed out and trying to keep things from falling apart. They’ll ship you a bag of beans and toss a 20% discount your way if you tap in our promo code (“top100project”).

Before you end your marriage, send us some tweets. We are @moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis

Ryan debates the merits of sports films over on Scoring At The Movies

LINKS:

Rotten Tomatoes reviews

AFI’s Top 100 Lists

2011 U.S. Box Office

IMDb Top 250

BBC Culture Top 100 Of The 21st Century

2011 in film

2011 Academy Award winners and nominees

Farhadi’s Oscar acceptance speech

Links to: The Salesman and Bicycle Thieves and Parasite

Previously on The Ellises’ Analysis: Young Adult

May 17th on The Ellises’ Analysis: Shrek