VIDEO: The trailer for The Stoning of Soraya M.
Unlike what happened to him in The Passion of the Christ, James Caviezel in this adaptation of a 1994 non-fiction book by Freidoune Sahebjam only hears about a grotesque martyrdom. Sporting a fake (and unnecessary) proboscis, he plays a French-Iranian journalist who listens to the true-ish tale of Soraya (Mozhan Marnò), a housewife who in 1986 was unjustly accused of infidelity, buried up to her waist, and stoned.
Relating these events (along with many others she didn't experience) is Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), the murdered woman's aunt, who's as saintly as Soraya's husband, Ali (Navid Negahban), is villainous. Therein lies much of the problem. Poorly written (with his wife, Betsy) and directed by Nowrasteh, the film is as black-and-white as his scripts for the TV movies The Path to 9/11 and The Day Reagan Was Shot.
