An Iranian couple has reached a crossroads when they can't come to a compromise on whether they will leave the country or stay to take care of the man's sickly father. As the divorce proceedings begin and the couple decide with whom their daughter will live, the hiring of a new maid to tend to the infirmed father will lead to an even greater legal struggle and a great rift between the already beset couple. Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation", this year's Best Foreign Film winner at the Academy Awards, is a brilliantly written and constructed study in semantics where the arguments and differences between the characters go round and round, revealing new intriguing details as the story progresses. Peyman Moadi is excellent as the embattled, yet goodhearted husband who finds himself entangled in a web of legal difficulties. I also liked Sareh Bayal and Shahab Hosseini who play the devout maid and her ill tempered husband. "A Separation" is a moving story about a disintegrating family and a fine representation of a foreign culture, but above all, in an movie age of recycled storylines and unoriginal ideas, it is unique and ingeniously written film experience.
