BEFORE: Sally Field carries over from "Stay Hungry", and with one more film after today, she'll be tied with two other actors for the lead in appearances this year. I did a 5-film chain of Sally Field films in February that were romance-based, and now I'm following up with another four that aren't - I must have figured I was going to use her as either the intro or the outro on the romance chain, and then, well, it just didn't work out that way. But I'm turning two of the leftovers into Mother's Day films, so there's that. "Places in the Heart", it turns out, could have worked in either chain. There was that love triangle between Ed Harris's character and two women, plus it had Sally Field growing cotton on her farm to support her two children. It's good to know that if I couldn't have fit that one THERE, it would have ended up HERE.
OK, today after posting I really, really need to figure out what I'm going to watch when I get back from the break in North Carolina. The Doc Block is all ready to go, I think I need to cap it at either 38 or 43 films, and figure out a way to get in to that block. But I just can't do that until I know what film(s) I'll be watching for Father's Day, and try to connect from there. Let's hope that's not too difficult or doesn't use up too many slots.
THE PLOT: An American woman trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutal husband must find a way for her and her daughter to escape.
AFTER: It's a heart-wrenching story of a mother's love and sacrifice for her daughter, trying to get her out of Iran and back to America so she can be taught in a proper school where they recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day and have low reading scores. Where is Michigan on the literary scale, anyway? Wow, 44th out of 50 states on reading, but hey, 17th in math, that's not too bad. What's worse is the fear that as the child of an Iranian citizen, her daughter could have been forced into marriage at the age of 9 or drafted as a child soldier.
This film was based on the true story of Betty Mahmoody, whose husband did not become abusive until he took his wife and daughter to visit his family in Iran, which he had not seen in ten years. Suddenly the doctor who claimed he was "American as apple pie" became super-Muslim and demanded that his wife become subservient to his wishes, dress like a Muslim woman and follow all the cultural rules while they were living with his family members. What he did not tell her when they went for a two-week visit was that he had lost his job at a Michigan hospital, and really had no plans to return with his family to the U.S. Meanwhile he swore on the Koran that they would return to American, and that he would not let any harm come to his wife and daughter while "on vacation", I guess he meant harm from others and he gave himself a pass. The message of the film to American women was very clear - don't marry an Iranian man, because they lie.
Once she was on Iranian soil, as the wife of an Iranian man, Betty technically became an Iranian citizen, that's another thing her husband neglected to mention. And if they should divorce, the laws of that country would give HIM sole custody of their daughter, something else it might have been nice to know before taking the trip. Once war with Iraq broke out it kind of became impossible to travel from the country anyway, and also it was difficult for her to contact her family or any U.S. embassy personnel to let them know she was being held against her will, because of another cultural practice that forbid women from using the telephone. Oh, yeah, this is set back in 1984-1986, long before cell phones or the internet.
Admittedly, the new rules were a bit unclear, the Shah of Iran had been exiled in 1979, so this wasn't the same Iran that her husband Sayyed grew up in. A lot changed in 10 years, but once he returned I suppose he figured out the lay of the land pretty quickly, and he thought he might have better luck finding employment as a doctor in Iran, only to find out that the Iranian hospitals didn't like the fact that he studied medicine in the U.S., so of course he was frustrated and took that out on his wife, as if that were her fault. Tough gig for Alfred Molina to have to play the abusive husband role and beat up America's sweetheart, Sally Field. It's not a good look.
Betty tries to get help from the Swiss Embassy, because they have an American Interests desk, but the diplomats are also bound by Iranian laws about citizenship and women not having the rights to do anything without their husband's permission. Sayyed, however, can beat her down or threaten to kill her if she disobeys him or even keeps secrets from him. In order to escape Betty has to play the long game and pretend that she's OK with her new submissive role, but we all just know that she's not - you can take the woman out of America, but you can't take the America out of the woman. She bends to his wishes so that she can spend time with her daughter and take her to the Iranian school while she secretly meets with some humanitarians who are willing to try and smuggle her and her daughter out of the country.
Six months go by, and Betty receives word that her father is very sick. Sayyed allows her to make plans to go and visit him, but without their daughter, and she's told to sell their house, liquidate all their assets and return to Iran. But then one morning when her husband is called to the hospital for an emergency, she instead takes her daughter to the smugglers and they start their dangerous escape to Ankara, Turkey, where there is an American embassy, and I'm guessing at least one McDonald's.
Directed by Brian Gilbert
Also starring Alfred Molina (last seen in "Species"), Sheila Rosenthal, Roshan Seth (last seen in "Dumbo" (2019)), Sarah Badel (last seen in "Just Visiting"), Mony Rey, Georges Corraface (last seen in "Escape from L.A."), Mary Nell Santacroce (last seen in "A Simple Twist of Fate"), Ed Grady (last seen in "The Handmaid's Tale"), Marc Gowan (last seen in "Greenland"), Bruce Evers (last seen in "Pet Sematary II"), Jonathan Cherchi, Soudabeh Neeya, Michael Morim, Gili Ben-Ozilio, Racheli Chaimian, Yossi Tabib, Amir Shmuel, Ya'ackov Banai (last seen in "The Omen" (1976)), Dafna Armoni, Judith Robinson, Avraham Mor, Sasson Gabay, Ahuva Keren, Farzaneh Taidi, Yerusha Tirosh, Yosef Shiloach
RATING: 5 out of 10 calls to prayer
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