People are voting emotionally.

From my favorite movies..

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I love this movie because it's about a brave mother risking her life to save her daughter. Where it takes place and who the foes are is secondary to me. Just as "The Handmaid's Tale" shows the dangers of a fundamentalist Old Testament Christian society where women have no rights, "Not Without My Daughter" tells of a similar society that happened to actually exist in Iran when this real life story took place. Imagine leaving your comfortable rights-filled home and being thrust into a country where your gender has zero rights, and to boot, you don't know the language and are totally unfamiliar with the culture or language, or religion. Oh, and you and your daughter are prisoners. This is Betty's own, personal, terrifying story. She encountered people who were hostile and seemed scary, or who were at least afraid to communicate with or help her. She was in a small, foreign environment. Hopefully people are intelligent enough not to make assumptions about an entire country of people but we also shouldn't ask a survivor to alter her terrorizing experience because we find it offensive. It IS scary that women and girls had no rights in Iran and that were prisoners. Of course, Americans in this situation would experience this very, very differently than those girls born there into loving families or who visited at a kinder and gentler time in Iran's history. Let's honor this heroic woman and her daughter, their story, while understanding that someone else could have an entirely different story and perspective coming out of Iran or any other Muslim country.

This is an 8+ star movie in my opinion. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out why the movie's been shouted down to 6.2 on IMDb. All I can say is, if the embarrassing shoe fits your backward culture, wear it.OK, I'm supposed to fill up space, according to IMDb, so here goes.An Iranian-American physician, living in Michigan, decides to move himself, his wife, and his daughter back to Iran, without cluing his family in to his intentions. Once in Iran, the man can't find a job, becomes completely unhinged, and refuses to let his wife and daughter return to America.Some examples of familial warmth: the doctor doesn't allow his wife to use the telephone in her own house, enlists friends and family members to spy on her, and repeatedly beats her and threatens her with death if she tries to leave Iran with his daughter. It's like 'Father Knows Best', but with a lot more emphasis on paranoia and revenge.Throw in scenes of daily life in Iran, and you come away with the following lesson: People who want normal lives, particularly for their wives and daughters, shouldn't move to a Moslem country.I found 'Not Without My Daughter' compelling from start to finish. If you're used to thinking of Sally Field as Forrest Gump's Mom, this will definitely help you get over that. Sally's great.

Adapted from the book of the same name by Betty Mahmoody, the film was directed by Brian Gilbert, screenplay written by David W. Rintels, and filming locations ranged from Ankara, Turkey, Neve Ilan, Israel, and in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a thoroughly well-acted, very absorbing drama, shrewdly evoking the central character's escalating nightmare as she comes to terms with being held hostage by her husband and being totally powerless to do anything about it. What alarms me more than anything is that, despite a number of reviews praising the film, one reviewer stated "Sally Field displays a lot of over-heated anguish". Is that person for real? I think the viewer is sympathetic to her ploy, as she was fooled into visiting Iran, and then was forced to conform to their culture, which is very primitive when it comes to women. Field has many scenes where she is able to show off her acting abilities and her performance never once shrinks, delivering a powerful turn, as does Alfred Molina in the less-sympathetic role. There is a beautiful performance from a very young and gifted Sheila Rosenthal as their young daughter, Mahtob, and displays acting abilities that are incredible for her age. Inevitably, this situation she and her mother find themselves in, affects her the most being just a six-year-old girl. I won't reveal the ending, but I can certainly say it is intense, very edgy, nail-biting stuff, which makes you incredibly nervous, and it's very well-drawn out. Unfortunately, the film ended up being largely criticised by Iranians, who saw it as another attempt by America to shame their culture. Many critics stated it had a hidden agenda. This is simply not true. The real-life Betty Mahmoody acted as a consultant on the film, to ensure accuracy, and it is made more than clear that she saw Islam as having great beauty in it; it was just the excessively oppressive system to women she could not adapt to. Some accused this of showing all Muslims as monsters. Now, I can see why this film could be used as racist propaganda, but, I also didn't see it this way. It was telling a true story, no more, no less. For instance, without giving too much away, it is actually a group of Muslims that aid Betty in her daring escape plan; the same penalty would be handed out to these Muslims if they were caught helping her - death! Some of the Muslims in the film are shown to be warm and very gracious, so I don't believe there was any hidden agenda here. If there WAS then all I can say is wherever the eyes of the filmmakers may have been, the heart of its stars were definitely in the right place. I also find it hard to believe that despite the harrowing tone of the film, those same critics that were mocking it stated that it is no more than an over-sensationlised, Lifetime-type TV movie; grossly inaccurate. This is far from some glossy, shallow melodrama. Yet, those with a rather closed-mind may view this as the be-all and end-all to life in Iran, which I don't believe it sets out to do. The incidental music accompanying many of the scenes was also criticised by some, though I personally felt it helped create the intended atmosphere and tone, as well as enhance the edge of the story.Ian Phillips

The story of Betty Mahmoody is a truly frightening one. 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. 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. 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.Sally Field was excellent in the role of Betty and Alfred Molina was also disturbingly believable as "Moody" - her husband. 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. Against her better judgement, Betty agrees to visit his family in Iran - a family more radically Islamic than Moody who from the moment they arrive begin to pressure him to stay and adopt their ways. Molina did a good job of showing the gradual changes in Moody's character and as he becomes more and more abusive and controlling toward Betty. Field superbly portrays Betty's growing desperation and her feelings of helplessness (and hopelessness) as every opportunity for her to escape with her daughter seems to close. Finally, with the help of some sympathetic Iranians, Betty and daughter Mahtoub make a mad escape attempt toward Turkey.Whether all aspects of Iranian life and culture are accurately portrayed here seems somewhat beside the point to me. This isn't, after all, a documentary about life in Iran. This is Betty's own story as she experienced it and remembered it - and it's a story that makes the viewer ache for her as she tries to figure out a way to escape this nightmare she's caught up in. I found her story completely believable and brilliantly portrayed.