Not Without My Daughter

Based on true events, Not Without My Daughter follows Sally Field’s Betty Mahmoody as she struggles to escape from Iran (and the clutches of her husband, Alfred Molina’s Moody) with her four year old (Sheila Rosenthal’s Mahtob). It’s a decent-enough premise that’s employed to pervasively and stunningly unwatchable effect by Brian Gilbert, as the filmmaker, armed with David W. Rintels’ screenplay, delivers an often comically broad and hopelessly less-than-subtle trainwreck that grows more and more intolerable as time slowly progresses – which is too bad, ultimately, given that the picture does get off to a decent start and boasts strong performances by its two leads. There’s little doubt, however, that the absurdly black-and-white bent of Rintels’ script paves the way for an uninvolving, repetitive midsection that’s hardly able to generate the suspense and tension one might’ve anticipated, and it’s clear, too, that the crushingly tedious atmosphere ensures that the narrative’s overtly exciting elements, especially Betty and Mahtob’s inevitable third-act attempt at escape, fall completely and utterly flat. By the time the laughably anticlimactic finish rolls around, Not Without My Daughter has undoubtedly cemented its place as an aggressively simplistic and misguided disaster that’s as dull as it is offensive.

1/2* out of ****