Two stranger's 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.
(117 votes)
2.
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
(114 votes)
3.
Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly star in the powerful drama HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG as two people fighting over the same house. Connelly is Kathy, a troubled young woman struggling with addiction and her husband's departure. Lost in her funk, she fails to check her mail, which includes letters threatening to evict her. After she is thrown out of the house she grew up in--wrongly, it turns out, so she seeks legal representation--Massoud Amir Behrani (Kingsley) buys the property at auction with the goal of selling it at a huge profit so his family can live a better life. Behrani, a former colonel in the Iranian army, is determined to make his family's move to the United States a successful one--nothing matters more to him than his wife and son's well-being. But when he sees Kathy sleeping in a car outside his fence, he knows he is in for a fight.
Based on the book by Andre Dubus III, Vadim Perelman's directorial debut is a fascinating study of family in the United States. Kathy has no one to turn to--her father is dead, her husband has abandoned her, and she's too frightened to seek help from her mother or brother. She falls for Lester (Ron Eldard), a deputy sheriff who claims to no longer love his wife. And Behrani is so dedicated to his wife (Shohreh Aghidashloo in a riveting performance) and son (Jonahtan Ahdout) that he blinds himself to Kathy's dire situation. HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG is a relentless, thought-provoking work that will linger with audiences long after the film ends.
(117 votes)
4.
The story of two people driven to desperate measures to claim ownership of a house. It is only a small bungalow in Northern California, but to Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), it is the last vestige of hope for reclaiming a life that was nearly lost to addiction. When a bureaucratic error forces her eviction, Kathy is left homeless—helpless to stop the house from being sold at auction for a fraction of its worth.
The new owner, Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), sees the house as the fulfillment of the American Dream he has been pursuing since he fled Iran with his family years earlier. A former Colonel in the Iranian Air Force, Behrani has been reduced to working menial jobs to maintain a pretense of affluence. Now he pours the last of his life savings into the purchase of the house that will, at last, bring back the prosperity his family once knew.
As Kathy and Behrani’s fight for the house escalates, Kathy finds an unlikely ally in the officer sent to evict her, Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard), who becomes dangerously devoted to her cause. Caught in the maelstrom are Behrani’s wife, Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and son, Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout).
What begins as a conflict over a small, rundown bungalow spirals into a clash of cultures that propels everyone involved towards an inescapable, and ultimately heartbreaking, climax.
(93 votes)
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