![]() As the story opens, the family are living a comfortable life in Michigan and Moody is a completely Americanized doctor working in a local hospital - a loving husband and father. Sally Field was excellent in the role of Betty and Alfred Molina was also disturbingly believable as "Moody" - her husband. It also does a great job of depicting the almost complete lack of rights and freedoms women possess in Iran - having a status as little more than property to their husbands, and subject to their complete control. There's no doubt that life in Iran isn't presented as paradise, but the story really isn't about life in Iran it's about one woman's experience of being forced to remain in Iran against her will after she and her daughter accompany her Iranian born doctor husband back to his homeland to visit his family, and about her subsequent efforts to escape Iran with her daughter. The book she wrote and this movie based on it are controversial (many see it as little more than a racist slam against Iranian culture) but to me this movie came across as both believable and balanced. The story of Betty Mahmoody is a truly frightening one. "People! Take your meds!" ~ Judge Elizabeth Donnelly (Judith Light), "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit " episode titled "Zebras." ![]() He's abusive, yes, but he is also a man caught between two completely different value systems and in the end one can't help but empathize with his inability to reconcile his love for his wife and daughter (read the book there was plenty of love there in the beginning) and the loyalty he cannot help but feel towards his family in Tehran. ![]() Sally Field delivers her usual powerhouse performance as the mother and Alfred Molina is surprisingly sympathetic as her husband. Those of you who are screaming "bigotry, racism, and lies" would do well to look inside your own hearts because I suspect there's plenty of duplicity in there. I read the book there was nothing in it to make me doubt Betty Mahmoody's story one iota. The story told in NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER is a straightforward tale of an abusive man who traps his wife and daughter in a place from which there is no escape unless the wife agrees to go home by herself.
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