Product Details

• Actors: Sally Field, Alfred Molina, Sheila Rosenthal, Roshan Seth, Sarah Badel
• Directors: Brian Gilbert
• Writers: Betty Mahmoody, David W. Rintels, William Hoffer
• Producers: Anthony Waye, Harry J. Ufland, Mary Jane Ufland
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, Persian
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: December 2, 1993
• Run Time: 116 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (168 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302067057
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,293 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Arab anti-defamation leagues understandably had a field day with this one. Sally Field plays Betty Mahmoody, an American who marries an Iranian (Alfred Molina) and has a child. They go back to Iran for a visit and, to her horror, he tells her he's decided to stay there. If she wants to leave, she must leave her daughter behind. If she stays, Betty must live in a culture vastly different and, she believes, very dangerous. Part thriller, part culture clash, the film certainly takes advantage of Americans' perceptions of Iran after the unrest of the '70s and early '80s. Molina is truly despicable as the husband, while Field projects a lot of overheated anguish as Betty tries to figure out a way to escape the country with her daughter. Overheated, in fact, is the word for the whole melodrama. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This movie was true and I lived it, November 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Not Without My Daughter [VHS] (VHS Tape)

To all of you people who have called this movie ridiculous...You live it and then tell us how ridiculous it is. Not only did I go through this with my mother when I was a child, but I unfortunately returned to live in the Middle East 15 years after she got me out and my father, again, tried to keep me there against my will. I have lived in a world you will hopefully never have to live in. So, please don't ever say it's not 'real'.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a harrowing tale of a clash of cultures, May 24, 2005

By 

Alejandra Vernon "artist & illustrator" (Long Beach, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Not Without My Daughter (DVD)

Based on Betty Mahmoody's account of her 18 months in Iran, this is a gripping, emotional roller coaster of a film that kept me riveted to the screen for all of its 115 minutes.

Though fearful, Betty agreed to go for a two-week visit to Iran with her husband Moody and daughter Mahtob, only to find at the end of the two weeks that her husband was fired from his job in the US, and he has no intention of leaving Iran. Moody's family are primitive village people, very extreme in their views, and Moody, at first to "save face", and then perhaps degenerating into the man he was before being "Americanized", inceasingly controls Betty with force and humiliation, all within the Ayatollah Khomeni's insane and rigorous Islamic state of 1984.

Her struggle to get out of Iran with her daughter is what this film is about (it would have been easy to leave alone), and there are many brave Iranians who risk their lives to help her. The claim that this film is racist is irrational, doesn't take these heroic people into consideration, and is an example of the narrow-minded intolerance shown in this film, a mindset that led to 9/11.

Though made in 1990, this is a very timely film to watch, and relates to the problem of abuse in every culture. I don't understand why it has slipped under the radar screen and is not more widely known. The acting is excellent by the entire cast, and the direction by Brian Gilbert is tight and feels like a top-notch thriller at times, with Jerry Goldsmith's terrific score and Peter Hannan's wonderful cinematography, shot on location in Israel, which is fantastic in the last portion of the film.

Sally Field and Alfred Molina give the performance of their lives, in what is much more than a "woman's film"; this is a film about humanity and extraordinary courage, and should have a much wider audience than it has had.

36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging, forthright movie, April 8, 2003

By 

J. Houzet "wozamoya" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not Without My Daughter [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Strangely enough, this was one of those movies I thought was "ho-hum, boring, a chick-flick" at the time it was released back in 1990. Seeing it later made me change my mind. It is the engaging true story of a woman who suffers abuse at the hands of her husband, but who is ultimately a survivor and even a warrior. Man, do you end up cheering for her. The added dimension is that the abuse she suffers is condoned by the country and political-religious system in which she was living at the time - Shi'ite Iran.
I believe this is a very true depiction of life for a woman in fundamentalist Muslim cultures, especially a western woman who is not used to submitting to oppressive cultural and marital demands. Wearing a burqa was the least of Betty Mahmoody's troubles - her husband, who initially appeared tolerant and even westernized while he was living in America, changes into a control freak when he returns to Iran with his wife and young daughter. I felt some sympathy for the husband due to the fact he appears initially reluctant to dominate Betty in the way his family and culture expects, but he was either fooling us all along, or he was very weak-minded and completely unfaithful to his vows to love and honor his wife by treating Betty so viciously.
Betty is at first incredulous about her husband's expectations, but when he starts beating her she learns to be docile while planning an escape for her and her daughter. It was amazing to see in the family situations how Iranian women are so indoctrinated by their culture that they too become oppressors, of other women and anyone who is not being Islamic enough.
Fortunately there are other heroes in this story besides Betty - Iranian dissidents who help her plan and execute an escape, at great risk to their own lives.