Separation 2013

In Tehran, a late-model city life hides a quietly tense family drama. A middle-class family—father Nader, mother Simin, and their ten-year-old daughter Termeh—live in a neat apartment that feels like it should be stable, predictable, and safe. Simin has prepared visas and envisions a fresh start abroad for the family, a step she believes is necessary for their future. Nader, by contrast, wants to remain in the country to care for his ailing father, who lives with them and suffers from Alzheimer’s. This fundamental disagreement becomes a fault line that the law soon magnifies: Simin files for divorce, hoping to secure a new life for Termeh away from Iran, while Nader refuses to abandon his father. The family court, however, sees the grounds as insufficient and rejects the application. The decision leaves Simin to retreat to her parents’ home, and Termeh to stay with her father, setting the stage for a quiet, relentless moral argument that unfolds within the walls of everyday life.

To keep the aging relative safe and cared for during the day, Nader hires Razieh, a deeply religious woman from a poorer, more distant suburb, to help with his father’s needs. Razieh brings with her her young daughter, Somayeh, as part of the routine, and the household begins to adapt to this new arrangement. The old man, though, is frail and incontinent, a detail that complicates Razieh’s responsibilities and the family’s expectations. On one day, Razieh and Somayeh are occupied elsewhere, and the elderly man wanders into the street in a vulnerable moment. Razieh rushes to reach him, navigating crowded traffic with urgency and fear.

When Nader and Termeh come home the next day, they find the old man unconscious on the bedroom floor, bound to the bed in a way that signals a troubling moment of alarm. Razieh and Somayeh are not present, and the atmosphere in the apartment is charged with unanswered questions. Razieh later explains that she had an urgent personal matter to attend to and that she had left to deal with it. Nader immediately suspects neglect and even theft, a charge sharpened by the fact that money from Simin had been used to pay movers. The accusation triggers a chain of heated disputes, with Nader’s temper flaring and Razieh’s fear of losing her job—and bearing the weight of her own precarious position—growing into a fragile, fragile tension.

In the ensuing days, a crucial moral moment emerges. Razieh says that Nader knew about her pregnancy because he overheard a conversation between Razieh and Termeh’s tutor, who had recommended a doctor for her. Nader denies this, and the tutor testifies in his support. Termeh, torn between her own instinct for truth and her loyalty to both parents, uncovers reasons to doubt the tutor’s certainty. In a pivotal turn, Nader admits to Termeh that he lied to protect both his father and his own freedom, acknowledging that prison would derail everything he cares about. The tutor withdraws her testimony, and Termeh, in a bid to shield her father, tells the judge that he did not know about the pregnancy until she disclosed it herself.

As the case unfolds, the dispute shifts from the private home to the public hall of law. Razieh alleges that Nader pushed her out when she attempted to return to the apartment with the old man, and she later confesses that she had not simply fallen by accident but that she had been under stress and in pain the night before—an evening that predates the push and involved a separate visit to a doctor. Hodjat, Razieh’s husband, is portrayed as volatile and sometimes dangerous, a presence that fuels Simin’s fear for Termeh’s safety. Simin urges Nader to reach a settlement, offering to provide financial support to Hodjat, but the money becomes a symbol of the fragile negotiations that haunt every step the family takes. Nader makes a difficult demand: Razieh should swear on the Qur’an that he was the one who caused the miscarriage. When Razieh cannot do so, the emotional weight of the situation grows heavier, and Hodjat reacts with escalating anger, sometimes resorting to self-harm in a moment of rage.

Throughout these events, the family court becomes the arena where truth, responsibility, and punishment collide. In the end, the court grants the divorce to Nader and Simin, a decision that seems to seal their separation even as Termeh remains the living link between the two households. The film closes with a quiet, almost ceremonial moment: the two parents wait outside the court separately while Termeh speaks to the judge, articulating a choice about which parent she will live with. The resolution is not a neat triumph but a sobering acknowledgment of the ambiguous, painful consequences of every decision made within a family under pressure. The film’s final image lingers on Termeh’s measured voice and the uneasy, lingering silence that follows, capturing the sense that truth, love, duty, and fear all coexist in the most intimate corners of everyday life.