James Foley’s Mother Says ‘Viper Club’ Did Not Consult Her Before Film’s Debut

The director of the movie Viper Club, starring Susan Sarandon, took inspiration from the story of slain journalist James Foley when crafting a story about a woman who attempts to free her freelance journalist son from ISIS captivity—but none of the film’s staff reached out to James Foley’s family or any other families in the production or before its release. The Washington Post reports that Foley’s mother, Diane, said the movie took her and her son’s story without her consent after watching the YouTube production’s debut at the Toronto Film Festival this week. She felt that Sarandon’s character was heavily inspired by her and said the movie showed her efforts to free James on the big screen—from talking to law enforcement and the State Department to tapping into networks outside government. “The director represented this as a totally fictional story,” Foley said, though Maryam Keshavarz “really knew our story rather intimately.” Keshavarz said she was “moved by real-life events” and did research to tell the stories of Foley and others in captivity but maintained that Viper Club was a work of fiction and said it “isn’t one person’s story.” “[Foley] will always see it as her story,” Keshavarz told the Post. “But it is a fictional character going through events that happened in real life.”