Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, an American who with his wife, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, adapted Freidoune Sahebjam’s novel, the movie gives us the story of a young Iranian woman, played by Mozhan Marnò, accused of adultery by her husband, Ali (Parviz Sayyad). Fans of US made-for-TV movies will recognize Ali as the kind of abusive peacock who once tormented Melissa Gilbert, Markie Post, and Valerie Bertinelli, to name a paltry few.
When he’s not beating the mother of his four kids, he’s cruising around the village in a sports car with another woman in the passenger seat. He would really love to marry the teenage daughter of a doctor in town, and sees a great opportunity to get rid of Soraya after a villager’s wife dies. Ali volunteers his wife to help the widower with his home and children. She reluctantly takes the job. The money is good; maybe she can use it to leave Ali. But from the minute she starts working, Ali manufactures jealous rage at the smiling she does at the widower and at the fact that their hands touch. Before long Ali is talking with the village elders about Soraya. The sentence for her alleged infidelity is death by public stoning. (“When a man accuses his wife,’’ an elder says, “she must prove her innocence. That is the law.’’)
This is serious injustice presented as the stuff of silent movies. The camera can’t get enough of incriminating shots of Soraya talking with her new boss. The plot against her - and it does happen to be a plot - is ludicrous. At no point is the young, very attractive Soraya allowed to say to her accusers, “Look at me, and look at him. Do you honestly think I would risk my life by sleeping with this dimwitted old man? Where are we, in a Woody Allen picture?’’ Clearing her name falls to her aunt (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who whirls around the village prevailing upon the men in charge to rethink their sentence. But, alas, we’re not talking about “The Woman Who Stopped the Stoning of Soraya M.’’
