Movie · 2013 · Drama, Mystery · 2h 10m · PG-13 · French
Curator score: 7.6/10 (78.3K ratings)
Overview
After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...
Bérénice Bejo, Ali Mosaffa, Tahar Rahim, Pauline Burlet, Elyes Aguis, Jeanne Jestin, Sabrina Ouazani, Babak Karimi, Valéria Cavalli, Aleksandra Klebanska, Jean-Michel Simonet, Pierre Guerder, Anne-Marion de Cayeux, Eléonora Marino, Jonathan Devred, Sylviane Fraval
Curator Review
Verdict
A tightly wound, emotionally precise family drama that turns a divorce into a slow-burn mystery about guilt, responsibility, and the damage people carry forward. It’s talky and deliberately frustrating at times, but the performances and escalating moral pressure make it deeply rewarding.
Best for
Viewers who like realistic domestic drama with moral ambiguity
Fans of tense, dialogue-driven mysteries
People drawn to stories about divorce, blended families, and buried secrets
Anyone who appreciated emotionally exacting European art-house drama
Skip if
You want a fast-moving thriller or overt plot twists
You dislike naturalistic, conversation-heavy films
You prefer clear heroes and villains
You’re looking for a lighter or more cathartic family drama
Overview
The Past is one of those films where a simple logistical errand becomes a full-scale emotional excavation. Asghar Farhadi builds tension from ordinary conversations, then keeps tightening the screws until every character seems trapped by something they said, failed to say, or cannot admit. The result is less a mystery of facts than a mystery of motives, and that’s where the film’s power lives.
Worth noting
What makes it so effective is the precision of the performances and the way Farhadi observes social friction without softening it. The Paris setting and multilingual household add texture, but the real drama is in the uneasy negotiations between parents, children, ex-partners, and new lovers. Even when the film feels a little over-insistent, its emotional logic remains brutally convincing.
Bottom line
This is not a film that offers easy closure. It’s about the persistence of the past, and how trying to repair one relationship can expose the damage in three others. If you respond to realism, moral complexity, and pressure-cooker family dynamics, it’s a standout.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Mike D'Angelo (4★) · 176 likes
74/100 (was 82)
Second viewing reveals the moderate extent to which the film's detractors are right and the overwhelming extent to which they are dead wrong. Part of the problem, as I noted in my initial review from Cannes, is that Farhadi keeps hammering his theme home via dialogue, which really made me cringe in the home stretch this time. ("Now I want to talk about the present. The past is gone." Clumsy translation, maybe, but still, c'mon, Asghar. We… more
Michael James (4★) · 159 likes
Yet another family drama wherein the master dramatist impresses you with his magnificent storytelling and characterizations. The way he manages to create a complicated web of crisis through a simple divorce proceeding and a mix of children belonging to different cultures and bloodlines is something extraordinary. The human nature gets explored in an intrinsic manner, be it the complexity of guilt or the impossibility of letting things go. The final shot with an ambiguous end beautiful sums things up.
Adi (4.5★) · 150 likes
There's a good life, a bad life and there's a Farhadi life. I'll be praying for you if it's the latter.
A gripping, deftly written, realism heavy drama that doesn't pull back any of its punches, The Past is an exquisitely crafted film that feels too real to be called cinema. Strapped with rivetting performances and directed with utmost precision, Asghar Farhadi's cerebral family drama handles a chock full of themes ranging from hidden agendas and marriage to family and… more
nick (5★) · 115 likes
The Past is almost on par with the greatness of A Separation, when it comes to the emotional power as well as the naturalistic realization of a story. With a predominantly French setting, The Past is a rather successful foray for Asghar Farhadi to follow his countryman Abbas Kiarostami's equally impressive footsteps into the European cinema world.
The way the story develops from a somewhat unassuming marital drama into something far more dark and intense is a testament to Farhadi's… more
Rizki (3.5★) · 83 likes
Marie: “You’re angry.”Samir: “No, I’m not.”Marie: “Yes, you are.”Samir: “You smoke too much.”Marie: “What do you mean?”Samir: “You know what I mean.”
Well, I guess you got the point. The Past is full of these ticking-bomb situations where any awkward answer is the butterfly’s fart before the emotional hurricane. Yet, as moody and depressing as the film is, it never really takes off — perhaps for the sake of realism, which is acceptable to a… more