There's a broader context that must be understood. Firstly, Israelis are involved in the production. This is not a reason to disregard the film out of hand. The premise of the film is that the Iranian authorities are misogynistic. This, I have no doubt, is entirely true. So I do respect the film on those grounds. It is however important to point out that this by it's very nature is hypocritical. These backwards Iranians are misogynistic. Why can't they simply purge ethnic minorities, and torture sectarian rebels like the oh so sophisticated Israelis? Justice that is knowingly applied inconsistently is hardly justice. But the filmmakers using a woman's memoir as a vehicle for pro-Israel propaganda is the low hanging fruit, and not a reason to dismiss it's substance entirely. The obvious thing that any intellectual noticed immediately.

The reading of Lolita specifically I do find interesting as well. But again, it offers an extreme amount of moral complexity, which I do think the author and perhaps the filmmakers are aware of. Note that it's been nearly 20 years since I've read Lolita, so take this analysis with some salt. The main character of Lolita, Humbert Humbert, can be described chiefly as a narcissist. He has no concern for right or wrong, merely his own gratification. He doesn't ever consider whether or not something is morally good or bad, he merely considers his actions purely through the lens of whether or not he thinks he will be caught or punished for his actions.

The catch is, that Humbert, and by extension, Nabakov (the author of the book) are "classically trained." That is to say, they are educated, presumably in Latin and Greek and Roman and Greek History. Now, in the Roman times, to my knowledge, the age at which a girl marries was 12 years old, which is Lolita's age. (although it is important to note that as far as I know, this would be more customarily to an 18 year old man, so not necessarily quite the same.) Nabakov presumably knows this, as a means of foreshadowing Humbert's moral complexity. Because as Lolita ages, she begins to try to find her way to escape from him, all the while interacting in a quasi-normal fashion with society. Ultimately she is successful and he has to let her go. And to my knowledge, he receives no greater comeuppance, and she is subsequently betrayed by the wider world who seeks to exploit her as well. So you come away with the realization, I suppose, that while Humbert is loathsome, there are in fact worse people out there, which is as odd as it is terrifying. And that furthermore, lots of people don't even really have as much of a moral high ground over him as they believe they do.

Which is interesting within the context of the film, the idea that the Iranian authorities are metaphorically Humbert paints a much more morally complex image of the Islamic Republic than I assume the filmmakers intended. But of course, that would involve actually understanding Lolita, or the broader regional context. My understanding is that modern Iran, for all it's ills, has been less prone to ethnic conflict than other countries in the region, including but not limited to Israel.

Ironically, both the filmmakers and the US government are in point of fact perfectly in bed with these Islamic authorities, not just in Iran but also in the context of the wider region. Let me be the first to suggest a People's Republic of Iran as an improvement to the situation. This would be a highly unpopular change not just among the Iranian authorities, but probably also the authorities in the USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Gaza, etc. And by realizing this fact, the mask is subsequently torn off and you find out that these people all collectively maintain a fraternal bond amongst themselves. What profound irony indeed.

Whether people like it or not, the story of Iran is a story of the collision between a pre-colonial/pre-globalist way of life and way of political and legal thought, and the political, social, and legal way of thought in the wider world and especially the west. I do not, for example, go around saying Konnichiwa to my fellow Americans as a result of the global Japanese hegemony, it's the other way around and Iranians go around saying "hello" and "merci" as a part of their normal speech. The Islamic revolution, for better or for worse, is an attempt to fjord their past and the wider world. To present their authorities as being inherently evil is probably true. But subsequently, one has to admit that nobody can actually claim the sort of moral purity the filmmakers wish to claim for themselves. If you take the oppression and misery of certain people within a nation as being proof of that government's inherent evil, then nobody is a good guy. Perhaps the filmmakers would prefer a version of their tea party in which a stray US or Israeli munition destroys their apartment building and buries them in rubble. Perhaps they believe that the ends justify the means. Perhaps they decide that death to the Islamic woman is a form of mercy. Whatever helps them sleep better at night in their houses in what used to be Jaffa.