A SEPARATION
Dir: Asghar Farhadi - Starring: Leila Hatami, Peyman Moadi, Skahab Hosseini.

A Separation won this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It also won at the Golden Globes and was named Best Film at both the Berlin and Sydney film festivals. It wasn't an accident.

The story centres on married couple Simin and Nader who are denied a divorce by a judge. He tells them to work it out. Problem is that she wants to leave Iran to give a better life to their 11 year old daughter while he wants to stay to look after his Alzheimer's-suffering father. So she moves out and he hires a housekeeper to watch over the old man.

That simple set-up covers a wealth of complexities but it is the housekeeper, a shy religious woman, who is the centre of conflict after an altercation with Nader spins out of control and the justice system gets involved.

A couple of months back I gave The Artist five stars. But nobody watched it on DVD. A black and white almost-silent movie was too much for most people. (You don't know what you missed!) So I guess this Iranian film will suffer the same fate. But it is extraordinary stuff, drama so keenly observed and so multi-faceted that it has the tension of a thriller. Superb acting, a brilliant screenplay, intelligent direction, this has it all.

It's a potent glimpse of how different, and how alike, all our lives are, fully deserving of its international accolades.

It's long been recognised that there is a market for movies amongst the older generation and the latest film aiming squarely for that demographic is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. And it's a lot of fun. Assembling a bunch of Britain's finest (Judy Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith et al) and setting them loose in India, to a hotel where they plan to ‘retire', only to find it in less than pristine condition, is a rather inspired set-up and the gentle wit and wonderful characters will serve to warm the hardest heart. Even I laughed out loud – those Brits do this stuff awfully well.

A Dangerous Method came as a disappointment to many people. A cerebral horror director taking on Freud and Jung – fireworks were sure to fly! But no... This is David Cronenberg in very serious mode and Michael Fassbender (Jung) and Viggio Mortensen (Freud) are both very dignified. Keira Knightley meanwhile convulses with hysteria as a patient. I find the nexus of these two men fascinating and thought the film a strange but rewarding journey. But, as they debate conflicting philosophies and struggle with the early days of ‘the talking cure' (psychoanalysis), it is all a bit dry.

Goon would, I think, make more sense to people familiar with ice hockey. Well at least this comedy tribute to the virtues of ice hockey players beating each other up would probably be funnier. In it Seann William Scott's pain-resistant bouncer is hired to be a hockey player because of his fighting abilities. He learns to skate then punches his way to glory on a direct trajectory to Liev Schreiber's feared big league thug. The DVD cover tries to tie this to Superbad and Pineapple Express – I don't think so.

House of Pleasures was, in Europe, named House of Tolerance, for that's what brothels were called in nineteenth century France. It's a striking film, one that has sharply divided critics. It shows, in repeating episodic fashion, the longueurs of life for the girls, the claustrophobic cut-off existence, the camaraderie and the dangers. But it is a strange film, with time looping round on itself and deliberately inexplicable and anachronistic moments. Some rated this as the best film of last year and some hated it. It is certainly an unusual, unique piece of work from writer director Bertrand Bonello.