Just what I expected

just watch it!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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. Which naturally she refuses to do.I read the book; there was nothing in it to make me doubt Betty Mahmoody's story one iota. 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.Sally Field delivers her usual powerhouse performance as the mother and Alfred Molina is surprisingly sympathetic as her husband. 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."People! Take your meds!" ~ Judge Elizabeth Donnelly (Judith Light), "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit;" episode titled "Zebras."

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.

As an American of Iranian extraction, I love reading the reviews about 'Not without my daughter'. Reviews written by my fellow Iranians reviewing it as 'one of the great lies in history', alongside reviews written by what I can only presume to be caucasians (mostly women probably) who call it a masterpiece, on the scale and scope of the Godfather or Citizen Kane about a moody Muslim who treats his wife like his goat.Honestly, it's hilarious. I'll try not to lose temper and beat my American wife. I am Muslim crazy for 'Not without my Daughter'. I tell my caucasian wife all the time that I'm taking our two daughters back to Iran. I can't wait to watch this with them when they get older.

Two kinds of people have reviewed the film: one, Americans, who for the fear of being tagged racists voiced their anger over some issues. and two, native iranians, who obviously were hurt for being shown as near monsters. i being a right minded 3rd person saw the movie with an empty mind and found it to be a hardhitting, well crafted movie. i don't know whether the facts are "embellished" as some claim. i don't know if there was any kind of exaggeration or generalisation and i have no means to be sure. but what i saw was an example of brilliant cinema. sally field was flawless. and so were other actors. it hurts me to see the negative response to the movie which i believe is because of the reservations in peoples mind. the screenplay i believe was great too. AND I AS A REASONABLE PERSON COULD BELIEVE IT TO BE TRUE...about that one family, not about the whole country. even the film never showed all iranians as bad. even the husband was not all satanic all the time. i have nothing against them. but i know of occurrence of such incidents. in fact a similar film "khuda ke liye" was made in Pakistan and it was hailed as a great movie. in my country too these things happen in the more conservative societies-exactly the same way. it was a good movie if we look at it objectively is all i wanna say.