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House of Sand and Fog Review

Well, I was going to write a review of Donnie Darko, which I just saw Friday night at the Camera 7 Midnight Movie Madness. But Saturday, we watched House of Sand and Fog, and since it’s a film that’s currently out, I’ll review that one first. But for those who’ve seen Donnie Darko but didn’t understand the plot, check out their interactive web site (I’d recommend using Internet Explorer — it didn’t seem to accept text input properly in Safari). The puzzles are not really that difficult, and at the end of the first level, you get a chance to finally read that Philosophy of Time book which answers a lot of questions (for those too lazy to jump through the hoops, you can also find a transcription of it here). For those who haven’t seen it, do rent it. It’s one of the most thought-provoking films I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, back to House of Sand and Fog, which is a very different animal, but is a very powerful and emotionally moving film — perhaps the best I’ve seen all year. Jennifer Connelly plays Kathy Nicolo, whose husband has left her and is now a recovering alcohollic living alone in a house she inherited from her father. She’s mistakenly evicted from her house due to a clerical error by the county — combined with the fact that, in her depression, she hasn’t been opening her mail.

Before she is able to straighten it out, the county has already sold the house to Massoud Amir Behrani, played by Ben Kingsley, who is simply a remarkable actor (if you haven’t yet seen his turn as the monstrous Don Logan in Sexy Beast, check it out!). Behrani is a retired colonel from Iran who, due to his close ties to the Shah, was forced to come to the U.S. and whose pride keeps him maintaining a lifestyle he feels his family deserves — even though it means working two menial jobs. Since the county auctions Kathy’s house well below market value, Behrani sees it as his last best opportunity for his family to reclaim the lifestyle that is slipping away from them.

The remarkable achievement of this film is that it treats both characters with such deft balance that the audience doesn’t take sides in this struggle. Kathy’s actions are totally understandable. In a time where she has enough troubles, she’s been stripped of the one thing she could depend on, and when the justice system fails her, she lashes out at the only obvious target she has left. Behrani, on the other hand, views Americans largely as irresponsible, soft people who don’t know a valuable opportunity when it hits them in the face, and thus is unmoved by Kathy’s plight and doubly determined not to pass up the chance for his family to regain their lost glory.

As the tragedy gradually unfolds, you keep willing these flawed but decent characters to somehow connect with each other to avert what we know is coming. And you get glimpses of hope that this will occur, but complicating matters is Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard), the cop who first evicts Kathy, only to be taken with her plight and her beauty — despite the fact that he’s married with two kids. And as the conflict inevitably escalates, Burdon (and his testosterone) is typically right in the middle of it. Eldard does a competent job, but he’s never struck me as an actor with a lot of range, and Burdon seems pretty similar to the roles he typically plays. Also, the character has considerably less depth, is less sympathetic, and shows less growth than Kathy or Behrani. At times I felt he served mostly to advance the plot, although everything he does makes sense in the context of what he knows and is going through.

But his role is secondary. What makes this film are Connelly and Kingsley’s compelling performances of tragic heroes opposing each other in the same film and learning painful lessons in the process. Just one of these performances would make the film worth watching, but just seeing them balance and contrast each other is a wonder to behold, and you feel so strongly for them that the painful storyline is simply emotionally devastating. And I’m so glad Connelly is getting the roles she deserves after being typecast for so long.

First-time director Vadim Perelman does a nice job letting the story unfold. I especially liked how Behrani’s situation is not overtly explained, but shown in pieces that don’t immediately make sense but eventually come together. Perelman also starts out emphasizing the explanation of Behrani’s situation and character, relying mostly on Kathy’s unjust predicament to gain the audience’s sympathy, and I thought it worked well (although my wife blamed Kathy for not opening her mail and thus found herself siding mostly with Behrani until near the end — but she loved the film as well). Perelman also effectively imbues the film with a somber tone, and I liked the use of fog as both a mood-setter and as symbolism for how people can be so easily obscured from seeing the other side. The symbolism of Kathy as the wounded bird was a bit heavy-handed, though.

The only real problem I had was James Horner’s score. He used to be one of my favorite composers for his work on Aliens, Star Trek II, and, incidentally, one of Connelly’s early films, The Rocketeer. He’s had mixed results handling the subtleties of non-action films, and was definitely way too heavy-handed here. But it’s not enough to detract too much from the film.

All in all, this is a great film, brilliantly acted, and not one that you will soon forget. Overall rating: 9.5 out of 10 smiley fishies (well, they really probably shouldn’t be smiling for this film, but I’m not about to go through the trouble of redrawing them all just for this review, so just imagine them with frowns).