Not Without My Daughter

This real-life case of Misery sets your teeth on edge, your blood boiling, your adrenaline surging with the subtlety of a World War II propaganda film. Read full review

What's surprising about Not Without My Daughter (which was adapted from a book that Betty Mahmoody wrote with William Hoffer) is how effective it is despite its obvious shortcomings. As a conventional thriller along the lines of, say, a Mission: Impossible episode, the movie actually manages to be borderline entertaining. [11 Jan 1991, p.9]

Not Without My Daughter is so patriotic that it plays like propaganda from the U.S. Defense Department. [11 Jan 1991, p.7]

It is Field's bursting, big-eyed American-ness - a commodity she has carefully banked since her days as TV's "Gidget" - that generates the film's lurid fascination. [11 Jan 1991, p.K]

Not even Seth's elegance and worldly warmth, nor his short speech about the virtues of his country's culture, is enough to give balance to the film's nearly two-hour portrayal of harassment, inequality and suppression. [11 Jan 1991, p.F1]

While not wishing to be facetious about women and children held against their will in any country, this tearjerker is strictly TV movie for a wet Wednesday stuff. Read full review

By enlisting jingoism and reducing an entire culture to caricature, Not Without My Daughter defeats any progressive point it may have intended to make. Read full review