Ahmad arrives in Paris from Iran after a four years absence to finalize his divorce from Marie. He finds that she is living with another man Samir and his son Fouad. The house is in disarray with Fouad acting up. Samir is a drycleaner whose wife is in a come. Marie doesn't get along with older daughter Lucie. She has another daughter Léa, both are from before Ahmad. She's pregnant which Ahmad unknowingly reveals to Lucie. Lucie has suspicions about Samir's wife's supposed suicide attempt which left her in a coma.

There is this underlining tension from the first moment of the movie. The audience is in the dark about this family which is revealed slowly. The first half of the movie is a little slow. The piecing together of the family does keep my attention. The personal drama packs quite a punch when it happens. Director Asghar Farhadi's style is a bit slow and doesn't push the tension to the fullest. If the pace is tightened, the drama could be heightened.

This is the movie that Bérénice Bejo won Best actress for at the Cannes Film Festival. While I liked her performance, I would not say that she was really this overwhelmingly good. Tahar Rahim showed his potential and my favorite display here was by Ali Mosaffa. "Le passé" is director Asghar Farhadi's next project after his Best Foreign Langue feature winner "Jodaeiye Nader az Simin".

Basically you could describe it as a relationship drama. The central female character has a new boyfriend and her ex-husband returns from Iran to France to fulfill the divorce. Obviously the questions arise to what extent she still has feelings for him and if he has some for her and how he gets along with her new man etc. In order to avoid tensions her new boyfriend has to move out for a while, so the two men can't clash and get in trouble, but obviously that only works well for a short amount of time. However, there is not much dispute between the two, actually there only is during one situation which is about repairing a sink. And as if this was not complicated enough already, her new boyfriend also has his own shadows in the past, namely his wife who is in a coma and who he obviously still has feelings for.

While I enjoyed most of the film, I did not really like the whole laundrette storyline and I feel Farhadi could have come up with something more convincing than the letter references. The daughter, who was an essential domino in this part of the movie and pretty much the connection between the comatose wife and the female main character played by Bejo did not really convince me with her performance. It was all too showy and inconsistent that it sometimes felt as if there was a lack of authenticity. Early on, it was not too easy to understand who was who and how they were all related to one another.

Despite these criticisms, it turns out a pretty good movie. The final scene at the hospital involving Rahim's character is possibly the emotional highlight, the performances are mostly quality and I also liked how all characters are dysfunctional and have their flaws. If you don't look beyond the surface you may think that Mosaffa's character was a bit of a saint, but then you realize, he's not perfect either. He left his wife and children, did not appear to a date they agreed on in the past etc. This movie is certainly worth a watch, especially if you liked Bejo in The Artist, enjoyed Farhadi's previous work or are just interested in what Iranian cinema looks like these days.

Our past defines us, but sometimes we also define our pasts. That might sound confusing, but that is sometimes how we deal and react to things reappearing from our past. From a life we thought we left behind. Sometimes we are the ones inviting it back, for shallow reasons maybe, not sure why you would do that to yourself and your loved ones.

Such a case can be built here. There was a reason why people separated, but then there might be a reason why they should be together again. The plot is sometimes tricky, especially with the hearsay and the relationships all over the place, but it does take its time to explain and let the audience in ... if they are willing and interested that is of course. A real life drama, superbly acted and chillingly slow