68
Metascore
38 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawFarhadi’s storytelling has overpowering force.
- 80Screen DailyLisa NesselsonScreen DailyLisa NesselsonMaking fine use of a top-flight Spanish-speaking cast, Asghar Farhadi deftly inserts love, resentment, class, money and family ties into a propulsive narrative replete with doubts, accusations, intimations, red herrings and other welcome ingredients from the suspenseful-drama arsenal.
- 80New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaNew York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaThe mystery becomes popcorn-chompingly compelling, each new piece of information adding shading and dimension to the true shape of the family. Nobody is above suspicion or below empathy.
- 75The A.V. ClubA.A. DowdThe A.V. ClubA.A. DowdQuintessentially, and maybe to a fault, this is a Farhadi movie: another of the writer-director’s gripping studies of a family torn asunder by a compounding mess of deception and revelation.
- 70VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeThough the film is slow to reach a place where its revelations can have an impact, once that starts to happen, it becomes compulsively absorbing.
- 67The PlaylistJessica KiangThe PlaylistJessica KiangFarhadi’s genius is to be able to take the most ordinary of situations (say, a separation) and turn it into the stuff of gripping sociological drama. But largely, this time out, he’s rather done the reverse: given a gripping premise and a game cast he has engineered perhaps his most ordinary film.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThe Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijIf the film remains largely watchable it is because Farhadi has cast some of the finest actors in Spain and they know how to breathe life into their characters even when they don’t have all that much to do (though a few of them have quite a lot to say).
- 60CineVueJoe WalshCineVueJoe WalshArguably, this is the Iranian’s most mainstream film to date, and lacks the subtlety of his early work, yet he still shows he has the ability to deliver devastating blows that leave you stunned. While not on top form, Faradhi demonstrates he is still a master craftsman, albeit in a more conventional mould.
- 60The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinFarhadi’s screenplay does an artful job of keeping vital fragments of each of its characters secret until the very end. But the climate of over-determined melodrama is rather less involving: characters synopsise their grievances so often, and so thoroughly, that many pivotal scenes have the corny texture of a “previously, on last week’s show” clip reel.