After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Ellen Estilai and her family attempt to leave Tehran, their home of nine years. At the airport, her Iranian husband is inexplicably prevented from leaving. As he confronts hostile colleagues and the Islamic Republic's opaque bureaucracy, Ellen examines their lives, trying to understand what might have brought them to this point. Exit Prohibited is a story of a complex Iran, at once welcoming and hostile, progressive and traditional, enamored of and distrustful of the West-an Iran as complex as Estilai's relationship to it.