Weekend Movie Forecast: The Hurt Locker Vs. Transformers

In The Stoning Of Soraya M., the title character refuses to divorce her abusive husband because he won't leave her enough money to feed her children, so he spreads rumors that she's adulterous, and you can probably guess what happens after that. It's based on a horrible incident that happened in small-town Iran. The Village Voice's Vadim Rizov says director Cyrus Nowrasteh "gives the proceedings more flair than is usual for the explicitly didactic: If his ideas (the camera rocketing on the stones thrown at Soraya, as if they were Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' arrows all over again) are bad, at least he's trying. But this is basically self-congratulatory fare for people who feel more "politically conscious" when reminded that women in the Islamic world can have it rough. Right now, you're better off just watching the news."