The story takes place in Iran, although it was filmed in an unidentified country. The secret site was chosen to avoid retaliatory action against such outspokenness. Director Cyrus Nowrasteh, who co-wrote the screenplay with Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, based the film on the book “The Stoning of Soraya M.” by Freidoune Sahebjam, a journalist’s account of a story uncovered during a trip to Iran about a real stoning of a framed victim.

What keeps us especially involved is the exposé of the way in which women are subjugated and brutalized, with men exercising their power under the guise of religion and with the complicity of a local mullah and mayor. Mozhan Marno is sympathetic and stoic as Soraya, whose husband beats her and wants to marry a 14-year-old girl, and also wants to avoid having to support Soraya. He arranges to have her accused of sleeping with the widower for whom she works, an adulterous offense punishable by death.

The heroine of the story is Soraya’s aunt Zahra, played with earthy vigor by Shohreh Aghdashloo, who tries in vain to save her niece and arranges for the facts to be smuggled out by the journalist. Those responsible for the evil machinations are played so well that we are able to believe that the unthinkable is happening, and there is also pathos in how Soraya’s employer is browbeaten into bearing false witness against her.

The director does not flinch in presenting the details and the horror of the execution. Although it is hard to watch, the director is well-justified in filming the brutality. Otherwise the crime against the victim would be too abstract. If stoning is going to be exposed, the terrible fate must be shown. Further horror is added by the practice of having the victim’s father, who disowns her and cast stones, as do her husband and her sons allied with their father as a result of his teaching them that his mother is inferior. The younger son is reluctant to go along, but has little choice.