Vadim Perelman makes his writing and directorial debut with House of Sand and Fog and pulls out an emotional story of sides separated by cultural differences and driven by necessity to the point where the characters must begin to determine what is most important.
Perelman adapted the script for House of Sand and Fog from Andre Dubus III best-selling novel of the same name, which is a task in and of itself that could not have been easy. The book is written entirely in the first person and Perelman had the daunting task of making his way through the complex emotions and descriptions laid out by Dubus and turn them into something comprehendible as House of Sand and Fog contains absolutely zero narrative.
Driven by a stellar cast including Jennifer Connelly as Kathy Nicolo, a young woman that recently lost her father and whose husband just walked out on her. She finds herself alone in the house her father left her, but times are about to change as she is wrongly evicted from her own house for past due business taxes that she did not owe, a problem that could have been avoided had she opened the mail she had been sent as opposed to letting it sit at the front door. The house is then to be auctioned off.
Cue Massoud Behrani (Kingsley), or should I say Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani, a one time member of the Shah of Iran’s elite inner circle that has brought his family to America to hopefully recreate the life he once enjoyed in Iran before the emergence of the ayatollahs. His plans haven’t quite worked out as he finds himself working days as a road crew worker and nights at a convenience store, but his pride cannot be shaken. When he is not working you will find Behrani dressed to the nine’s in his perfectly fitted suit, hoping to exude the appearance as he once did in Iran.
He cuts out a newspaper clipping for a county auction for what was Kathy’s house and his plan takes shape as he figures he will make his money in real-estate, buying and selling property until his needs are met, but he didn’t count on the trouble his first acquisition would cause him. He attends the auction and finds himself the proud owner of the tiny bungalow for around $45,000, and the market price is reported to be three to four times that much.
A clash of cultures begins as Kathy begins to fight to get her house back and Behrani won’t budge, stating the house was purchased legally and her problem’s must be resolved with the county, the house is his.
Throughout the ordeal Kathy finds herself living in a motel and then in her car until she meets up with the deputy that originally came to remove her from her prior residence. Deputy Sheriff Lester Burden (Eldard) is House of Sand and Fog‘s wild card, as he is contemplating leaving his wife and is magnetically drawn to Kathy. His character seems to be lost and he finds himself in an equally lost soul with Kathy.
House of Sand and Fog is an emotionally charged movie that pits Kathy Nicolo versus Massoud Behrani as one is driven by the memory of her late father and the other is driven by his massive amounts of pride and loyalty to his family. The intriguing part of House of Sand and Fog is that there is no clear-cut bad guy/good guy since both characters have rights to the property that has drawn a cultural line in the sand pitting two people so different against each other.
Academy Award winners Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly manage to stir emotions and feelings from the audience in this film that exposes the unsettling truth that it is sometimes our hopes and not our hatreds that drive us to ruin. Jennifer Connelly is absolutely stunning in her portrayal as Kathy no matter what light she is shown in and carries of the role just as well, if not better than her role in A Beautiful Min which won her an Oscar. She is a broken person that allows you to feel her pain and sorrow, while at the same time making you want to console her as she finds herself in the most precarious of situations.
On the other hand we have the honorable Ben Kingsley whose grace and precision is exhumed in the character of Massoud Behrani. Kingsley manages to pull off everything Behrani embodies from the pages of the book to the silver screen, a man who only wishes to return himself and his family to the status they once enjoyed.
Additionally, Ron Eldard is cast to play a vulnerable yet strong willed police officer dedicated to helping Kathy get her house back. While his motives may be good his actions soon make his appearances on screen frustrating and inconceivable, but this does not take anything away from the movie, in fact it may have helped it more than you could believe.
The role he is asked to play is the point on which the two lead characters balance and when he decides to lean one way or the other Kathy’s life and the Behrani’s are affected in more ways than one.
In a story where emotions run high, House of Sand and Fog is yet another one of the more recently downtrodden films to hit the screen this year, which began with the earlier Mystic River and 21 Grams, but where Mystic River failed and 21 Grams hailed, House of Sand and Fog allows you to care for its characters and create an attachment to their lives, something very important in a movie that doesn’t have the expected, happy Hollywood ending.
