House of Sand and Fog (film)
From AwardAnnals
 | |
| Director(s) | Vadim Perelman |
|---|---|
| Distributor | Dreamworks Video |
| Academy Award winners Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) and Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) deliver stunning performances as two strangers whose conflicting pursuits of the American Dream lead to a fight for their hopes at any cost. What begins as a struggle over a rundown bungalow spirals into a clash that propels everyone involved toward a shocking resolution. “The surprise ending will leave you breathless!” (Clay Smith, Access Hollywood) | |
Academy Award winners Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) and Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) deliver stunning performances as two strangers whose conflicting pursuits of the American Dream lead to a fight for their hopes at any cost. What begins as a struggle over a rundown bungalow spirals into a clash that propels everyone involved toward a shocking resolution. “The surprise ending will leave you breathless!” (Clay Smith, Access Hollywood)
Reviews
Amazon.com
Jennifer Connelly followed up her Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind with this dark but moving story of small mistakes that escalate, with tragic necessity, to disaster. In House of Sand and Fog, Kathy (Connelly) gets evicted from her house for failing to pay a tax she never should have been charged in the first place. The house is swiftly put up for auction and bought by a former military officer from Iran named Behrani (Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast). When legal efforts fail her, Kathy turns to a sympathetic cop (Ron Eldard, Bastard Out of Carolina), who wants out of a loveless marriage and who’s willing to step over legal boundaries if it might give him a fresh start. Topnotch performances by the entire cast make House of Sand and Fog a compelling psychological drama; your sympathies will be pulled in all directions. —Bret Fetzer
Barnes and Noble
If you’re tired of filling up on brain-dead popcorn movies and eager to sink your teeth into something meatier, this searing drama is just the dish for you. House of Sand and Fog is saturated with emotion and remains compelling from the first provocative scene to the last. Jennifer Connelly plays Kathy Nicolo, a recent divorcée and recovering alcoholic with an unhealthy attachment to the California beachfront home left to her after the death of her parents. A bureaucratic mistake puts Kathy’s house on the auction block to satisfy a tax lien, and opportunistic Iranian immigrant Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley) snaps up the property. The balance of the film is devoted to the ensuing tug of war between Kathy and Massoud: To her, the house represents a safe haven; to him, it represents a simulacrum of the prosperity he and his family enjoyed in their homeland. Writer-director Vadim Perelman skillfully adapts Andre Dubus III’s complex novel and manages to craft a gripping film without villains. Both owners of the house are flawed people trying to do their best, and each remains steadfast in the belief that the other’s claim to the property is invalid. Connelly makes Nicolo an achingly vulnerable and emotionally fragile character. Kingsley, who received an Oscar nomination for his work, invests the former military man with just enough decency and humanity to offset his pride and arrogance. The most outstanding turn, however, is by Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, also nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Massoud’s long-suffering wife. She is absolutely mesmerizing, and in a role that gives her only a few snatches of English dialogue. Unusually intelligent and supremely well acted, House of Sand and Fog will demand your complete attention—and reward you with an unforgettable viewing experience. Ed Hulse
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Related works
House of Sand and Fog: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
A California real estate dispute may hardly seem the foundation for riveting drama, but in director Vadim Perelman’s adaptation of Andre Dubus II’s novel it becomes an unflinching, yet crucially non-judgmental study of disparate characters caught up in a spiraling conflict where home is considerably more than a place to live. Composer James Horner takes the medium-budget project as an opportunity to break with much of the melodic expectations of his Hollywood fare, coloring the film’s more personally-scaled drama with an introspective score that turns on…
Tense with suspense from the first line, this is one of the great American realist novels. In this page-turning, breathtaking novel, the characters will walk off the page and into your life. And a small house will seem like the most important piece of territory in the world. On a road crew in California, a former colonel in the Iranian Air Force under the Shah yearns to restore his family’s dignity. When an attractive bungalow comes available on county auction for a fraction of its value, he sees a great opportunity for himself, his wife, and his children. But…
