My first review: The House of Sand and Fog

I wanted to make this my first review because I still feel that this movie did not get the recognition it deserved. Overshadowed by many critics and the Oscars (which do a great deal to decide what people are actually going to go see) by the mediocre offering of Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River", I feel that this is one of the best major Hollywood releases in a long time.

Adapted from a surely wonderful book, this film shook me to the core. The story is unconventional, and quite mundane on the surface, but this is not a movie about grand heros, epic romances or clashes between good and evil. It is a movie about life, self-interest, and true crisis. The things that make and break people are not earthshattering nor are they newsworthy. They happen quietly and over time. These are the things we are made to see through the awesome storytelling of Perelman's screenplay adaptation.

There are no villains in this film. No protagonists, either. Just two sides, locked in a bitter and strikingly real dispute over the rights to a house which seems to have no easy resolution.

First we have Kathy Niccolo (Connelly), a recovering alcoholic who doesn't clean her kitchen or get up in the morning. Her sole possession of value is in fact the house she lives in, which was left to her by her father who passed away. Her husband left her months ago but she has yet to tell her family. She doesn't open her mail for months, and wakes up one morning with a cop at her door ready to evict her for non-payment of taxes which were mistakenly leveed against her by the county.

She befriends the sympathetic trooper (Eldard) who offers to help her move and with whom she strikes up an affair later on as her situation deteriorates so badly she is forced to live in her car.

On the other half, we have the Behrani family, mother and son led by their patriarch, the indomitable Sir Ben Kingsley. Col. Massoud Emir Behrani has held high station in life. When the Shah of Iran was in power, he was an important man. A man of great means. This fact he has not forgotten, despite having been driven from his homeland by opposition forces when the Shah's rule ended. Now treated in this country like a lowly immigrant laborer by his employers and people around him who formerly (to quote the film) "would not have been allowed to raise their eyes" to him, he holds onto his dignity with a desperate grip.

Now he works two jobs. The first with a road crew, shoveling gravel during the day and working as a cashier at a gas station at night, all the time, scrounging every penny he can in the hopes that he once again will have for his family the beautiful life they experienced in Iran.

When he leaves a day of work with the road crew, he changes into a crisp suit before he returns home and tells his teenage son that he works for Boeing. They live in a fancy and expensive hotel room, wasting away what is left of their old fortune so that Ismael (Col.'s son) may not know the truth of how much they have fallen.

When Kathy Niccolo's house goes up for auction it is eagerly bought by Behrani, who hopes to sell the house at 4x profit and move his wife and son to a larger home more fitting of their former station in life.

Though noone is truly villainized, at times the viewer may feel more sympathetic to one side or the other. Yet under it all lies the inescapable reality that neither side is wrong. The wants and the needs they feel are natural, driving forces behind all human action. The need for shelter, the need for tradition, the need to protect inadequecies and the need to be loved.

Both sides are really one and the same, a fact which they both come to realize in one of the most well acted scenes ever, when Kathy attempts to kill herself sitting in her car outside Behrani's/her home. Connelly's acting, here in particular, is just magnificent, in this scene actually managing to shine as bright as Kingsley. The combination of their performances together brought me to tears, even during many repeated viewings. This scene (for me) actually outshines the powerful climax (which I will not spoil), and is possibly the most important part of the movie. It is here that the overwhelming humanity of both characters comes to full bloom, and they become one and the same. No longer adversaries bickering over a plot of land or some unseen prize (which up until that point had been exclusively how one viewed the other). For a brief time, it is their house. Their home, their crisis.

The minimal supporting cast is very strong, even Eldard who usually bothers me is at his best here. Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays Ms. Behrani, has to be seen to appreciate the subtle, brilliant performance she effortlessly provides.

The only flaw, and this may be nitpicking but so be it, is during Kingsley's most empassioned moment right near then end. He is stricken with grief so mightily that he has fallen on his knees to pray desperately to Allah. Though it is most moving and effective, this scene asks us to beleive that an Iranian man who is in his most desperate hour of need, would cry out to his God in English, rather than in his native tongue. Kingsley's acting skill is quite possibly unrivaled, and I surely can beleive that he could have learned enough Arabic to carry this scene the way it should have been played. I then fault Perelman, for at best not having this flaw occur to him, or at worst deciding to be more friendly to his audience by not forcing them to endure subtitles.

None of the slight flaws dull the radiance of this film. House of Sand and Fog stabs deep into the heart of human issues and will not leave the viewer unaffected.

Rating: 9 out of 10