The Past

Bérénice Bejo won the best actress prize at Cannes for this, the first feature made by writer/director Asghar Farhadi (Nader and Simin, a Separation) outside his native Iran. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to suburban Paris after four years to finalise his divorce from Marie (Bejo), but the fate of their relationship is far from certain, especially as Marie's teenage daughter (Pauline Burlet) intensely dislikes her pregnant mother's new fiancé (Tahar Rahim), even though his son gets on well with her little sister. Closely guarded home truths emerge and keep the story moving, but for all its intensity and the excellence of the ensemble, there is less at stake for the characters here than in Farhadi's previous films and, therefore, it feels less dauntingly compelling. While archly leaking clues as to the truth of the situation, Farhadi perhaps errs too much on the side of paternalism, although he also delivers intimate insights into modern family life.