The Past (2013)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Ahmad arrives in Paris from Iran after a four years absence to finalize his divorce from Marie. He finds that she is living with another man Samir and his son Fouad. The house is in disarray with Fouad acting up. Samir is a drycleaner whose wife is in a come. Marie doesn't get along with older daughter Lucie. She has another daughter Léa, both are from before Ahmad. She's pregnant which Ahmad unknowingly reveals to Lucie. Lucie has suspicions about Samir's wife's supposed suicide attempt which left her in a coma.There is this underlining tension from the first moment of the movie. The audience is in the dark about this family which is revealed slowly. The first half of the movie is a little slow. The piecing together of the family does keep my attention. The personal drama packs quite a punch when it happens. Director Asghar Farhadi's style is a bit slow and doesn't push the tension to the fullest. If the pace is tightened, the drama could be heightened.

Estranged husband arrives from Tehran to give wife her Paris divorce. There, he meets her current - younger - boyfriend de jour. Also the man's son, as well as his wife's daughters by previous marriages. For reasons that are never quite determined, the woman has bounced around a bit. Of course, commitment is always demanding, and adjusting to another culture only adds to the difficulty. Gradually, secrets emerge about the older daughter's fury, and the boyfriend's comatose wife. Not a fun film, but well acted from an intelligent, adult script. Shot in suburbs far from touristy Paris. Nice to see Iranians not cast as terrorists or zealots.

Is it the man who leaves his wife and daughters, the 2 cheaters or the 2 saboteurs that drove a women into suicide? It's a film about people with problems. And it's their own fault. Everyone just intensifies the problems of the others simply because "they are not happy".I don't understand all the positive feedback, and reviews like "a story about normal people". These people are not normal, they each work hard to make the life of their "loved ones" as miserable as possible. If this is normal, i don't know a lot of normal people.If you enjoy a film about people blaming each other for the mess they created, this one is for you.4 stars because of good acting / camera-work / soundtrack etc.

Asghar Farhadi has once again proved how talented he is with the family dramas. The movie right from the start keeps offering viewers something about their lives that adds to the whole picture of the situation. It very nakedly expresses how indecisive humans can get and how unknowingly we become a part of complexities that exhaust us. The movie very diplomatically points at no one as the villain or the hero, very much like his last film or like many of the acclaimed dramas that have come out over the years. The quick sands of relations that pull us deep so slowly and the next moment we are stuck as much as we try to move. The layers are intertwined in a poetic fashion that help us deeply understand each one of the characters and their ordeal and yet blame no one for the situation. The acting stayed flawless throughout, justifying every inch of the master piece writing. The editing was sharp and keeps us focused without letting us realize any of the transitions with major gaps in the tensions. The beauty of the direction lies in how Asghar succeeds in turning a drama with elements of a thriller. The sheer consistency in his direction makes us viewers wait for his next with as much anticipation that he left us with after his last Oscar award winning drama, "A Separation".