The Stoning of Soraya M.

While there’s little doubt that filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh’s heart is in the right place, The Stoning of Soraya M. effectively (and consistently) reduces an admittedly devastating subject matter to a series of eye-rollingly hoary clichés and stereotypes. Nowrasteh, working from a script cowritten with Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, has infused the proceedings with a lack of subtlety that pervades its every aspect, which ultimately diminishes the power of the film’s few compelling elements (including the surprisingly brutal third-act stoning). The movie, which details the build-up to the public execution of the title character, boasts an entirely needless wraparound story that sets an underwhelming tone right from the get-go, as Jim Caviezel pops up as a French journalist who learns of Soraya’s unfortunate fate from close friend Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) after his car breaks down in a small Iranian village. It’s a misguided structural choice that would be easy enough to forgive were it not for the heavy hand with which Nowrasteh has imbued the remainder of the film, with the director’s ridiculously black-and-white modus operandi adversely coloring even the most innocuous of sequences. It’s consequently not surprising to note that the characters are painted as either good or evil, something that, in terms of the latter, is exemplified by a laughable line of dialogue from one of the moustache-twirling men (“muzzles should be for women, not dogs!”) And although Nowrasteh does include a few poignant moments here and there (eg Soraya (Mozhan Marnò) tearfully says goodbye to her children before her execution), The Stoning of Soraya M. primarily comes off as an amateurish, egregiously simplistic piece of work that climaxes with an absurd finale that’ll turn off even the most forgiving viewer (after Caviezel’s character escapes from the village armed with proof of Soraya’s murder, Zahra, arms outstretched, exclaims to the heavens, “now the world will know what happened here! The world will know!”)

* out of ****