Review: House of Sand and Fog



Jennifer Connelly plays a hopeless, recovering junkie who hasn’t checked her mail in months and isn’t aware that a bureaucratic stuff-up has resulted in her being billed for outstanding payments she doesn’t owe, and therefore is evicted from her house. The house goes up for auction and is bought fairly and legally by proud-to-a-fault Iranian immigrant Ben Kingsley, who has slaved in menial labour jobs (he was a dignified Iranian Colonel back home) to be able to purchase the house (cheaply I might add) so he can resell it (apparently a common thing to do, I’m not educated in real estate at all, still living at home) at market value with a few modifications. Needless to say, Connelly ain’t happy, and the two are heading for a showdown, with catastrophic contrivances…er…consequences. Shoreh Aghdashloo earned an Oscar nomination for her fine work as Kingsley’s timid, compassionate wife, and she and her on-screen son Jonathan Ahdout later played the wife and son of an Arab-terrorist on the best season thus far of TV’s “24”. Ron Eldard has a dopey role as the married, unscrupulous, but well-meaning cop who falls for Connelly and tries to help her. Frances Fisher (not a favourite actress of mine, unlike Connelly, whom I love) is completely wasted as Connelly’s utterly useless lawyer.


Exceptionally well-acted, critically lauded 2003 film from Vadim Perelman (a first-timer) starts off reasonably well (despite the stupidity and loser behaviour of Connelly’s character), but after a while one realises that the entire thing is just one contrivance after another. If your story depends on this many contrivances and illogical character behaviour in order for you to set up the story and make the points you are trying to make (something about self-absorption and our indifference to others’ problems), it’s probably a good idea to start all over again. Kingsley is especially fine (who despite physically accosting his wife at one point, is a far more likeable and believable character than Connelly’s insipid loser), attempting to create as much of a 3D character as possible, and given how easy it would’ve been to turn this character into Arab Terrorist Numero Uno (Don’t worry, terrorism has nothing to do with anything here, but it could’ve), he deserves to be commended.


It just didn’t work for me, I’m afraid, the climax is especially melodramatic and stupid, and I simply didn’t respond to this like many others have. The screenplay is by the director (a Russian immigrant himself, apparently) and Shawn Lawrence Otto, from a (hopefully better) novel by Andre Dubus III (Author of “In the Bedroom”, the film adaptation of which had its own problems of credibility but was much better).


Rating: C+

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