The Stoning of Soraya M.

Handsomely photographed with an exquisite lead performance by House of Sand and Fog Academy Award-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo, this film made its world premiere at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. There, it was chosen as runner-up for the Audience Choice Award (Slumdog Millionaire won as audience favorite before going on to win the Oscar). Based on the acclaimed 1994 international best-seller The Stoning of Soraya M., by Parisian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, the book brought global attention to the real Soraya, who in 1986 was buried to her waist in her hometown square and stoned to death by her fellow villagers.

Given current events in Iran, the timing of the film’s release in the U.S. couldn’t be better positioned to attract an audience. From my point of view it’s going to need all the help it can get. At the end of viewing this film I realized there was not a single person (not one!) to whom I could recommend it. First-time feature film director Cyrus Nowrasteh, who co-wrote the screenplay with wife Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, shows us the main event in a prolonged, torturous set piece that had me closing my eyes several times to escape the brutality of it all. It’s the point the filmmakers want to drive home and I can understand why they didn’t shy away from it altogether, but as depicted it totally felt to me more gratuitous than necessary.

Aghdasloo’s character Zahra, Soraya’s aunt and protector, who later tells Soraya’s story to journalist Sahebjam (Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel portrays him in a relatively small role), is the most interesting and best written role in the film. Most of the rest of the characters, including Soraya (the lovely Mozhan Marnò), seem to be stand-ins for ideas or concepts rather than real flesh-and-blood people. Acting-wise the men, in particular, come across as stock characters from a bad western.

One thing for sure — this film made the stoning scene in Jack Black’s comedy Year One (which I saw shortly after having seen this film) a lot less funny. It didn’t, however, change my own perception that capital punishment is wrong whether the person is guilty — or as in the case of Soraya — someone unjustly accused of acts they did not even commit.

                                            Jim Baldassare