Should this film have been made?

Honestly, while I do see how people quickly jump on the band wagon to say "this is giving Iranians a bad name!!", I think a bigger picture is being missed. If every single Iranian person was the way Moody's family and the Iranian government were like Betty and Mahtob would still be stuck over in Iran. I think people miss the fact that she never would have got out of Iran if there weren't other Iranians who didn't agree with how she was being treated and risked their lives to help her and her daughter escape. They could have been executed for this or even died in the process of it.

Another thing being missed is why Betty needed to tell her story. Fact is, Betty's story is not rare. There are countries out there who have laws like this. Women are being lawfully held hostage, lawfully abused, and their children are stuck with a parent who is not ideal due to the country's laws. Many people did not realize this was going on at the time the movie came out or that it even could happen. As Betty has mentioned before, the woman at the Swiss embassy mentioned to her that many women asked for help leaving the country only to find out it was against the law whether they were an American or not. They think thought their American rights would carry over to whatever country they were in.

I do understand that there is an argument that this film helped fuel hatred towards Iran, however, I think saying the film shouldn't have been made is missing a big picture. It's like saying you shouldn't make an American film about kidnapped children because it will make people fear for their children in American. Well maybe it will, but if you don't know about it how do you expect anything to get done about it? You can't hide from reality and this movie is a reality of what can happen to women in other countries with a different culture and laws.

And on the dramatization, the only two things I found in this film that were dramatized, from what Betty and Mahtob have said, is the scene where she nearly gets raped. That did not happen even though the smugglers did have a reputation for raping women. They just needed an excuse for why the route was changed and didn't want to make the movie too long. The other scene was the bombing at the school. This was added in to show how dangerous it was for Mahtob and Betty to be in Iran. In real life that happened at night when nobody was there. This movie was fairly close to their account. Very close actually. Not much dramatization. I was shocked at how close it was.