When Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an Iranian exile, set out to make a documentary about Farah, the wife of the shah of Iran, she expected to encounter her opposite. As a child, Nahid had lived in dire poverty, watching Farah’s wedding as if it were a fairy tale. As a teenager, she joined the Communist faction of Khomeini’s revolution that deposed the shah, sending him and his family volleying from country to country. When Khomeini betrayed his promise for democracy, imposing more violent measures than the shah had, Nahid was also forced to flee. Thirty years later, she needs key questions answered and goes directly to the source. Surprisingly, Queen Farah welcomes her as a fellow refugee from their beloved homeland, granting unprecedented access. Over the next year and a half, Nahid enters the queen’s world, planning to challenge the shah’s ideology; instead, she must rethink her own.