The stoning of Soraya M is the screen adaptation of an international bestseller by the same name written by French-Iranian journalist Fridoune Shabjam. The story is from a town named Utayeh in Iran where young boys are continuously being fed with the thought that it’s a man’s world.

They are made to imbibe in them a culture of sheer disrespect towards women be it a mother or sister.Right from the beginning the way in which the film opens leaves with you a palpable sense of uneasiness about the entire setting, of the kind that one would associate with the lull after a   storm that has wreaked  havoc . 

Soraya Manucheri’s husband Ali who is a prison guard at the town cell has decided to marry a 14-year old girl who Ali thinks will make a better wife as compared to Soraya.  The only problem is Ali cannot support two wives so he asks Soraya  for a divorce.

Interestingly he offers her a plot of land and volunteers to take care of his two sons but  Soraya will have to bear the custody of their two daughters. But Soraya knows all too well that she and her daughters will have to starve to death if she accepts this proposal and so she bluntly refuses to accept it.

All hell break loose upon Soraya as Ali conjures every trick possible to get rid of her. The performances in the film ring true to the setting. Mozhan Marno who plays Soraya engages you into the dramatic events in her characters life with her eyes.

But the real star of the ensemble is  Shohreh Agdashloo who plays Soraya’s aunt. Her character very much epitomizes the  ever so oppressed voice of dissent against a world inherently unjust towards women.

She acts as  a shield for her niece against all the plotting and scheming  that Ali concocts with the help of an accomplice in the guise of  a religious preacher.

The film raises some fundamental questions about religion and depicts how faith in the almighty can be used as an  excuse for commitment of heinous acts of injustice towards fellow human beings.

According to Sharia law a woman convicted of adultery is sentenced to death by stoning . Ali manages to get Soraya framed under the law-which is not at all a difficult proposition given that even the laws appear to be biased towards the men.

Young boys picking up stones to be used for the execution as shown in the film is  a very suggestive image We as audience cannot help but draw a parallel between the reel and the real.