Start to finish, we see things from the vantage of a judge presiding over their dilemma: Simin wants to leave Iran with daughter Termeh, but Nader refuses to leave his father, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, behind and not under his family’s watchful care.

The impasse is so severe, Simin decides a formal divorce is the only way to leave with her daughter before their visas expire.

The subplot of the nanny Nader hires to watch over his father while he is away at work is both exceptionally crafted and expertly performed by not only Sareh Bayat (the actress portraying Razieh, the deeply religious woman hired by Nader) but also Shahab Hosseini (as Houjat, Razieh’s husband) and Kimia Hosseini (who, to the best of to my knowledge, is of no relation to Shahab despite sharing a surname and playing his young daughter Somayeh).

I find it difficult to find any flaw in this film, and I could continue writing about all the perfect notes “A Separation” hits, but I want to focus on one character in particular and the actress portraying her: Termeh (Sarina Farhadi).

The entire story pivots on what is to become of Termeh and how she reacts to the acrimony surrounding her parents. Neither parent truly wants to deprive the other of their wishes for Termeh. Nader wants the vision Simin has for them if not for the obligation to look after his father. Despite Simin prompting the divorce hearing and her insistence at following through with the plans for leaving Iran with Termeh, Nader shows throughout that he is as emotionally attached to his daughter as her mother is, taking the time to help Termeh perfect her language lessons all while juggling the competing stresses of his wife moving out, trouble with Razieh’s handling of his father and the remaining day-to-day duties he regularly performs.

Ultimately we see Nader and Simin both as victims of the legal and cultural system at play, but the true victim is Termeh — caught between them both, balancing the concern she has with her grandfather, the honor she wishes to show to her mother and the moral struggle she faces as Razieh accuses her father of a crime he may or may not have committed.

Throughout the film, Sarina (director Asghar’s daughter in real life) reminds us that as we try to sort out who’s right and who’s wrong (an impossible task, to be sure, with its “Rashomon”-like play on perspectives), we have one central character with whom to empathize. She navigates Termeh’s subtle showings of despair, anger, uncertainty and pressure effortlessly. Whether the performance is owed more to her skills as an actor or her father’s skill as an acting coach, it’s nonetheless spellbinding. Whereas that opening scene of the judge (and audience) staring at Nader and Simin as they bicker during the divorce proceeding, Sarina Farhadi’s Termeh is tearful and poignantly nervous when asked to choose between her parents — a decision we’re not privy to as the couple waits in the wings of the court building as the credits roll.

There were so many supporting actress roles worthy of an Academy Award nomination this year (many of them belonging to Jessica Chastain), but Farhadi did not end up having her name called when the announcements were made. But I (and I suspect others) will take solace in knowing that this brilliant film will be seen and appreciated for decades to come, and with it so too will Sarina’s performance. Perhaps it can rewrite the chapter on directors casting their kids that has been so pronounced since Francis Ford Coppola cast daughter Sofia (a far better director than actor) in “The Godfather Part III.”

The story’s trajectory is finely measured and provides a gradual descent into an intricate madness, and the care director Ben Wheatley takes with the camera when things gets hairy is tonally perfect in eliciting scares.

But the film has any number of nightmarishly confusing clues throughout, including multiple references to Christianity and the occult, possible dream theories and allegory for the moral corruption of society. Trying to process them all will lead to any number of dead ends as you attempt to decipher what’s really going on here.

It might be easy to write this film off given its somewhat convoluted plot, but it instead heightens the visual data the audience receives. Sure, it may not ultimately make sense, but “Kill List” pushes you to wade through the bog of clues and almost become desperate in unlocking the key to understanding what the hell happened.

It all starts out in the home of Jay (Neil Maskell), an ex-soldier who’s not working after a nebulous experience in Kiev. He and wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) share an inharmonious dinner party with Jay’s business partner Gal (Michael Smiley, who previously worked with director Wheatley on 2009′s “Down Terrace”) and his girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer). Before the night is through, Jay’s ripped the cloth off the food-adorned table and Fiona has etched a mysterious symbol in the back of a bathroom mirror in Jay and Shel’s home.

At first I felt ashamed that, given my own Anglo ancestry, I found it so difficult to understand the lines being uttered by the actors with nary a whisper. But on a subsequent viewing, I realized that as genuine in mood as their conversations are, the line delivery is outright weak. Perhaps this is meant to disorientate the viewer, but there’s plenty to come that will do precisely that.

Case in point: Jay and Gal are hitmen, tasked with a “kill list” of three: a priest, a librarian and an MP.

As with many hitman plots, things don’t go quite according to the plan set out for them when they first got the job, but something deeper and far more sinister is at work. Suffice it to say, there are some unplanned deaths waiting to happen, and Jay and Gal both are tested by the challenge of finishing the job to the point where they sink into the grim, stygian third act.

How you react to the ending will ultimately dictate your impression of “Kill List” as a whole, whether you felt the first hour was languid or brilliant. I find it to be a refreshing take on the “one last job” story, especially given that this is horror instead of heist. And given the body count involved, the gore factor is minimal — Wheatley is far more content to offer fleeting bits of savagely brutal violence than to inundate us with blood and guts.

Perhaps the only thing that could have made “Kill List” better would have been better elocution from the main cast members; as much head-scratching as the film’s finale will induce, it’s best your scalp not already be worn down from trying to make out the dialogue.

“Kill List” is unrated thanks to its immense amount of violence, language and disturbing images that may or may not haunt your dreams. Running time: 95 minutes. Three stars out of four.

(Psst… “Act of Valor” opens nationwide Feb. 24.)

Some of you may recall my preview for “Jeff, Who Lives At Home” when it came to town last November for the Starz Denver Film Festival. For those who missed it, “Jeff” is showing at 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, on the first day of the Boulder International Film Festival.

Getting hung up on subgenre labels is a great way to distract yourself from enjoying a film, which would be a shame going into the Jason Segel/Ed Helms dramedy from “mumblecore” directing duo Jay and Mark Duplass (“Cyrus”).

For audiences seeing “Jeff” for the first time, it’s a well-timed refresher on Segel’s acting (which suffered in a lot of critics’ reports from “The Muppets” when held up against the likes of Kermit and Miss Piggy). It’s also a breath of fresh air for Helms, as this viewer in particular would prefer he step away from the vestiges of his “Office” and “Hangover” characters.

The field for Best Supporting Actress was too crowded for Shailene Woodley (“The Descendants”), so it’s no surprise that last year’s John Cassavetes Award winner Judy Greer, who plays the wife of Helms’ Pat, hasn’t received a lot of attention following her role in the Oscar-buzzing Alexander Payne film. Hindsight being 20/20, it’s clear the people running the Starz festival knew something about her small yet substantial roles in both films when they honored her last year.

And last to be noted in this post but certainly not least, Susan Sarandon’s turn as Jeff’s mother remains memorable some four months after I caught the film at a preview screening — not necessarily for the acting job she does (which is fine), but for the unique role she inhabits as a woman simultaneously dealing with the manchild who lives in her basement and a mysterious suitor sending her anonymous instant messages while she’s at work.

You can read a synopsis somewhere else to get more details on the story; my point here is that “Jeff, Who Lives At Home” is worth seeing. While the following would usually sound derogatory coming out of my mouth or from my keyboard, I mean this in the nicest way: “Jeff, Who Lives At Home” is cute. Here’s the trailer:

The film, directed by Nelson George and clocking in at 75 minutes, has its world-premiere screening Saturday, March 10, in downtown Austin as part of SXSW’s film lineup.
If you’ve already dropped over $500 for the all-encompassing film badge and can check out that screening with your only added investment being the time you spend in the theater, there’s no issue.
But even then, you may want be tempted to spend that time differently when you consider the film will air on ESPN the following night.

Many of us cinephiles will proclaim from the rooftops how important it is to see something on the big screen, in a darkened theater with a group of strangers. Given that you could watch it from the comfort of your Austin hotel room (or your living room, if you’re not SXSW-bound), how important is it to see “The Announcement” in the theater?

Jason Reitman is doing a decent job of staying out of M. Night Shyamalan territory, but he has done little to dispel the word that the one-time wunderkind of Hollywood has not lived up to his billing.

Thankfully for him, he’s branched out beyond feature film into a series of stage readings of film scripts, a collection of one-night-only affairs with new actors delivering classic lines. His most recent foray into this is a planned reading of Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” with an all-black cast.

Of course, this sort of thing doesn’t get the press that a stage reading of a film script normally would or should receive. It ends up dominating the Twitter and Facebook timelines of many a film writer (I’m hesitant to even mention it here). I start seeing “X is Mr. Blonde?!?!?” tweets and hack jokes by the dozen. And all because people who usually star in multi-million-dollar cinematic ventures will spend a night onstage re-interpreting someone else’s work.

I love theater; the immediacy and intimacy it has with the audience is tough to match. But just don’t saturate my timeline, regularly populated with film news, with theater news (or worse, Huffington Post-style headlines that purposefully distort the real news in a guise to dupe netizens into boosting their ad revenues further with click after click after click).

“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is rated PG-13. 129 minutes. 1 1/2 stars out of four.