"'House' Broken"
by Scott Mantz

“House of Sand and Fog”
Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly
Directed by Vadim Perelman

There's no place like home! Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley face off in "House of Sand and Fog"

Unlike most book-minded moviegoers, I’ll go out of my way not to read a book if I know that it’s going to be made into a film, and for a very good reason: It’s incredibly unfair to compare the two very different mediums, and besides, a movie should stand on its own, plain and simple.

Having said that, the big screen version of “House of Sand and Fog,” based on the acclaimed 1999 bestseller by Andre Dubus III, doesn’t stand on its own, and for a multitude of reasons. The book may have been a critical sensation, but as far as the movie is concerned, the whole foundation for the story is too weak to justify the often tragic events that transpire. That’s too bad, because despite stellar performances from Oscar-winners Ben Kingsley (Best Actor for 1982’s “Gandhi”) and Jennifer Connelly (Best Supporting Actress for 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind”), the film is far-fetched in the extreme and too contrived to ring true.

When recovering alcoholic Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly) is evicted from her sleepy Northern California bungalow, she is helpless to stop it from being auctioned off at a fraction of its value. The buyer is Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), a former Iranian Colonel who sees the house as a culmination of the American Dream for his family. When Kathy and Behrani’s fight for the house escalates, Kathy finds solace in Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard), the deputy sheriff who originally evicted her. What starts off as a conflict over a small house escalates into a life-threatening clash of cultures, culminating with drastic consequences that will forever change the lives of everyone involved.

Following a successful career as a commercial director, Vadim Perelman makes his feature directorial debut with “House of Sand and Fog,” a story that obviously taps into his own personal experiences after fleeing Kiev as an immigrant teenager. That connection is undoubtedly what gives Perelman the ability to set the mood with an atmospheric pace that builds edge-of-your seat intensity as it goes along.

The problem is that Perelman takes his source material way too seriously, and what starts off as an understandable attempt for the emotionally fragile Kathy to get her house back escalates to ridiculous proportions. Her ignorant selfishness leads to the destruction of not one, but two families, and as a result, you can’t help but lose sympathy for her. Not that the rest of the characters are any more sympathetic, as Behrani is frustratingly insensitive to his own family’s needs and Burdon sacrifices everything for a suspicious wacko whom he hardly knows.

Having said that, there’s still an interesting dynamic at play here, and that’s what keeps the film mildly engaging. The story is supposed to portray Kathy as the so-called “victim,” but none of this would have happened if she would have simply opened her mail and responded to the situation sooner. In addition, the story is supposed to portray Behrani as the so-called “bad guy,” but he’s simply doing what he thinks is best by embracing capitalism at its finest. The only dynamic that doesn’t make sense here is with Burdon, who puts everything on the line way too fast for a situation that has “trouble” written all over it.

Despite its flaws, the film features some top-notch performances. Sir Ben Kingsley continues his reign as one of the greatest actors of our time with a devastating performance as the conflicted traditionalist whose priorities are all screwed up. The beautiful Jennifer Connelly is also strong as the film’s lost soul (although it is a little hard to believe her as a house cleaner), but the standout performance here belongs to Anne Bancroft look-alike Shohreh Aghdashloo, who is heartbreaking as Kingsley’s devoted wife.

To its credit, the film is beautifully shot, powerfully acted and intensely paced, but ultimately, it stands on a foundation that’s simply too weak to be believed. And happy-go-lucky moviegoers should be warned: The film is very depressing with a gut-wrenching ending that goes on forever. That’s definitely not my cup of tea (especially after everything that it took to get there), but who knows…maybe the book is better after all.

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