Well, having read the book, I went also to see the film last night. But I will probably not wish to go to see the musical or buy the soundtrack of the musical with specially commissioned songs by Sting and Bono and Madonna and Cher and several other rock stars who only have one name, all their other names having been given to their favourite charities to auction off. 
 I didn't read Persepolis Book Two so was interested that the film incorporates both books. However my joy turned to large bananas which have been left too long in the fruit bowl of life and are now blackened and soggy, as I came to realise that the perky sassy girl of Part One grew up to be the miserable pain in the ass shoegazing student of Part Two. So the movie demonstrated the curious fact that you can have the most exotic of backgrounds (Iran! revolution! fundamentalism! war!) and still be a dullard. 
 (I should interpose that the visual aspect of the movie is very pretty, and when one has determined that the political content is close to zero, one can transfer one's attention to the exhuberant cartooning without a qualm). 
 There are two very odd things about this two-book-one-movie : the word AYATOLLAH is never mentioned, not once. As neither is the other word ISLAM. But if I recall correctly, Iran experienced an ISLAMic revolution led by the AYATOLLAH Khomeini. So this is like "My Life in Germany 1930-1940" without mentioning Hitler or the Nazi Party. That's odd! Maybe she'd be on the receiving end of an icepick haircut if she named names, but still. Also odd is the apparent fact that the author's family could send the author out of Iran to Vienna for years at a time - not once, but twice! What implications does this have for our view of the intolerable oppression of the regime? 
 So in spite of all its trappings, Persepolis in the end is as political and insightful as Shopaholic, i.e. not political and not insightful, and gets away with it because the author can not unreasonably retort that political acumen was quite outside of her purview as she was growing up trying to score Iron Maiden cassettes and trying on lurid shades of lipstick; whence come all the cardboard cutouts which populate the movie, and whence all the unexplained actions and motivations. The dialogue from the adults in her early life is either "the regime tortured your uncle without mercy. He was a communist" or "I put jasmine leaves in my bra every day". It seems Persepolis has gained its popularity from sheer quaintness. I was looking for more.