The Past (12A)

Directed by Asghar Farhadi

4 Stars

Asghar Farhadi's eagerly awaited follow-up to his Oscar-winning A Separation is a complex and intense family melodrama set in the suburbs of Paris which slowly transforms into a bizarrely intriguing whodunit.

The Iranian writer-director delivers a masterful and compelling study of dysfunctional family dynamics and how messy relationships can be.

After being separated for four years Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to Paris from Tehran to finalise his divorce from his French wife Marie (Berenice Bejo) at her request.

Despite his reluctance, she insists he stays at her ramshackle home with her two daughters from a previous marriage and the young son of her current lover whose wife is in a coma after an attempted suicide bid.

His arrival causes untold friction between Marie and her other half Samir (Tahar Rahim) as Marie starts relying on Ahmad to resolve her family problems, especially with her bolshie teenage daughter Lucie.

Farhadi elicits powerfully raw and stripped-back performances from the cast, particularly its youngest members in a film which poses more questions than it answers and which plunges into a finale full of contrived twists and turns.

But these can be forgiven, largely due to the emotional honesty of the drama and its riveting performances.

Maria Duarte