Great acting, great subject matter, poor execution...
is a 7-word review by me.
I didn't understand why they had the scene to show how strict their dress codes were pertaining to women having exposed hair, when Betty (Sally Field) had exposed bangs for the rest of the movie anyway. What was the point of establishing that rule just to contradict it? We're supposed to feel her hopeless fish-out-of-water oppression, not the lenience they're granting her sheesh!
I see this movie as nothing but a propaganda piece for American patriotism and Anti-Islam attitudes.
What REALLY broke the film for me though was its almost non-sequitur storytelling. From scene-to-scene (they were short scenes too) you have no sense of chronology. You had no sense of the amount of time that had passed from say, their 2 week arrival/planned stay to how long it took Betty to start doing the grocery shopping and navigating the streets, forming contacts to help escape etc. I know Mahtob had 2 birthday parties was it? Yes, that's a good clue...but I still felt that the scenes just didn't flow together well enough.
It was just a wash, rinse, repeat fiasco of : 1) Help, I'm an American trapped in Iran!; 2) I'm acting like I accept my situation and am trying to adapt; to 3) I'm really going to escape this time!
The only thing that saved this movie were its 2 powerful leading stars.
"I listened and I heard music in a word."--Pete Townshend