HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG ---------------------
'She's a bird, a broken one. Grandfather said that when a bird flies into your arms, it is an angel.' Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani
'Are you Cathy Kathy Nicolo? Is this your house?' a policeman asks a sad young woman who sits overlooking a modest bungalow encased in fog and flashing police car lights. Making his feature directorial debut, Vadim Perelman leaves no doubt that we are about to see a tragic story in "House of Sand and Fog."
Andre Dubus III's novel, was about a clash of cultures killing the American dream of two equally guiltless parties. As adapted by the director and Shawn Lawrence Otto, "House of Sand and Fog" stacks the deck more heavily against Kathy who is played as if in a fog of her own by Jennifer Connelly. While Connelly's character is indeed sympathetic, it is Ben Kingsley's multi-layered rendering of the majestic former Iranian Air Force colonel pitted against her who haunts the memory.
Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly, "The Hulk") is a depressed former addict living in squalor in the coastal home left to her and her brother by her father. The loud knocks of the sheriff's office rouse her to learn that she must vacate her home because of nonpayment of business taxes, a bureaucratic mixup she has little time to correct. Strike one against Kathy - while she seemingly can still work in her ironic job as a housekeeper, she allows herself to fall into such a stupor at home that she lets the mail pile up beneath the slot it is dropped through. Kathy seeks assistance from a public defender (a no nonsense Frances Fisher, "Blue Car"), but before they're able to take action and sue the city, Kathy's house has already been sold at auction.
Massoud Amir Behrani (Kingsley, "Sexy Beast") is a proud man struggling to present the same affluent lifestyle he enjoyed in Iran to his expatriate community in San Francisco. Behrani has accomplished wedding his daughter to a wealthy Iranian and it is whispered that he works for Boeing at the reception. In reality, Behrani works menial jobs, including an overnight stint at a gas station. The auction of the Nicolo house is the beginning of the rebuilding of his personal respectability.
Kathy's second strike comes when she allows the sympathy of married Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard, "Ghost Ship") to turn into something else. They see Behrani as a foreigner looking to make a quick buck by restoring her house, then selling it. Behrani sees them as prejudiced and pampered Americans. Further complicating matters is the interplay between Kathy and Behrani's wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo, "Maryam") and son Esamail (newcomer Jonathan Ahdout) who do not initially understand her connection to their new home and offer her only kindness.
The character of Burdon is a major problem. The man has no admirable qualities, which reflects poorly on Kathy. He uses a beautiful young woman in distress as an excuse to extricate himself from a marriage (wife Carol is well played in two brief scenes by Kim Dickens) that only seems to have grown too comfortable. The Deputy Sheriff, who should have a trained eye, allows a professed former substance abuser to drink alcohol. He then uses his badge and a fake name to threaten Behrani. Burdon is a necessary element of the ever-escalating collision of wills, one just wishes he had been more well thought out.
Connelly's portrayal of Kathy as a lost, wounded beauty is fine, but she is outclassed by Kingsley, who admittedly has a more complexly written character. While Connelly's Kathy spills her neediness out for all to see, Kingsley's Behrani draws admiration for suffering in silence, actually martyred for his macho pride. It is also Connelly's misfortune to always appear glamorous and Perelman does nothing to downplay her beauty - taken out to dinner by Lester, the homeless woman appears in a beautiful dress and strappy heels. Kingsley runs through a gamut of emotions while rarely dropping the outward facade that shields his standing in society. He is desperate to become financially sound, frustrated by his uncomprehending wife's demands and terrified by the haunting of the fragile beauty whose misfortune is his gain. Kingsley also conveys a rich heritage and spiritual beliefs that eventually break down his resistance to Kathy. His Behrani is a good man forced into a corner who eventually turns the other cheek. Another stunning performance is given by Shohreh Aghdashloo, who gets to the heart of a woman utterly dependent on her husband as a stranger in a foreign land. Aghdashloo shows the spoiled traits of a woman used to moving in the upper classes, but her calm kindness is her real essence. Eldard is saddled with a poorly conceived character, but makes him believable nonetheless.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins ("A Beautiful Mind") and production designer Maia Javan ("The Banger Sisters") succeed in making the house itself a character. Deakins photographs it inside and out, from the details that define a home to the landscape it is set within (the view from the house ties it to the Behrani's former, more palatial home in Iran, and also gives the modest home cache). The house is reflects its two owners with unshowy set decoration, while maintaining its own identity. A cherished Iranian metalwork coffee table is used to symbolically illustrate the cultural clash between Kathy and the Colonel. James Horner ("Titanic") delivers another nice score after his work on "The Missing," a mournful accompaniment to this unrelenting tragedy.
Russian born Perelman has given his film's perspective more fully to the foreigner in the land of opportunity, but the universal desire for land ownership has never been more lamentably depicted.
B+
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