A Separation got lots of Oscar buzz in the year it came out, and in fact won the statuette for best foreign language film. The scene that I saw in all the previews, where an Iranian wife is asking for a divorce from her husband, actually happens right at the beginning -- that's not the big conflict of the movie, as it turns out. It felt a bit like false advertising to discover that the true legal issue in the film is a criminal one; the husband is accused of pushing a woman (not his wife) down the stairs, causing a miscarriage. I was distracted while I was watching this, and it is subtitled, which is not a good combination. But it is at heart a simple story of a marriage falling apart, for reasons we know and reasons we don't.
Bottom line: not something I would call enjoyable, but worth seeing if you're into the film festival movies. Otherwise, skip it. It's a bit depressing.
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