I am not Iranian and am not married to an Iranian. However, I have done some research on Betty Mahmoodi and feel she greatly dramatized and told untruths about her stay in Iran and about her husband, Dr. Mahmoodi. If Betty had played herself in the movie, you would see she is a large woman, not petite like Sally Fields. In contrast, her husband is a small slim man. I doubt very much that he hit her, knocked her down, and beat her. She could eat him for breakfast. Nor does the fact that she had been previously married and had children, then divorced ever touched upon. By the way, she did not keep the children of her first marriage. Also, she took ten suitcases of clothes with her when she traveled to Iran. I believe she definitely knew that they would be staying for a while. The home she lived in while Iran was very nice and Iranian people are extremely clean. She apparently decided she didn't want to stay there and raised a ruckus. Her husband, wanted to keep his only child--can you blame him? According to International Law, she is the transgressor, not her husband.
The book and the movie were very moving, so much so that I decided to find out more. I was totally disillusioned. The book should have clearly been marked "fiction" or "fairy tale."