House of Sand and Fog

Rating:
Summary: Stunning but questions arise
Review: I was anxious to see this movie because of allthe great review I'd read about it and the Oscar nominations. Like many of the other reviewers, I thought this movie was visually and emotionally stunning. I loved the photography of the beautiful, fog-laden northern California coast. The story is heart-rending. Ben Kingsley is phenomenal as an Iranian immigrant caught in a maelstrom not of his making. The actors playing his wife and son also are excellent as other reviewers have noted--worth renting the movie just to see their performances.
And while Jennifer Connelly is good, I kept asking myself, Why doesn't she have a job?? Why doesn't she seek help with some of the myriad nonprofits and government agencies available to help people in all kinds of distress? If her credit card didn't go through, where did she get the cash for gas and liquor? Why didn't she go out and get a job, even a menial one, right away? She has this pride (and stupidity?) that prevents her from telling her mother and brother about the situation, which might have brought her some help and resulted in a different ending and, alas, a different story. At one point she says she's been sober for three years. Well, what has she done for those last three years? Her character just stumbles along, bereft. And Kingsley's character has a job on a road crew, yet washes up in a hotel bathroom and puts on his totally unwrinkled suit to arrive home, keeping up appearances that he has some high-paying, executive-type job. Then we see him working as a cashier at night. How can his family not know about all that? These things annoyed me.
I haven't read the book, where some of these questions might be answered.

Rating:
Summary: About as Good as Movies Get
Review: I rented this movie because I saw the name "Ben Kingsley," which means you almost can't go wrong. I suggest that other viewers see it as I saw it--not knowing a thing about the story line. You will be blown away by the true-to-life ironies of it.

Just when I thought Hollywood couldn't make movies like this anymore, we get a solid five-star film with some of the best writing, acting, editing and directing I've witnessed in the last decade. This movie will pull you in five emotional directions and have you glued to the screen the entire time. It's an experience that leaves you reeling, thanks to first-rate storytelling from the writers, director and editors, and first-rate acting from the entire cast. As if that weren't enough, the score serves the movie well, always augmenting what we see, rather than distracting us from it (as is too often the case with today's overblown syntho-scores).

My only regret is watching the "outtakes," which contain a scene that was wisely left out of the film, but taints my experience of it, now that I've seen it.

If you like the painful complexities that Greek tragedies have to offer, this film is a modern version that will completely satisfy you--truly a classic!

Rating:
Summary: A vivid and real picture of human emotion
Review: This movie is amazing. I can't emphasize that enough.
This movie is about Jennifer Connely and her struggles with her life. After the city mistakenly evicts her out of her inherited house, an Irani family moves in. They clearly do not want to budge, they love the house and its view of the ocean.
A cop who helps evict Connely's character out of her house befriends her and ends up in love with her. He has mistakenly married his best friend, someone he doesn't feel the least bit of passion towards, and somebody with whom he chose to procreate.
Connely and the police officer make love to each other and promise to start a new life. The officer is obviously concerned about leaving his children, but he is so unhappy that he has himself convinced that he is going to go through with it.
Meanwhile, Connely is staying wherever she can, struggling with life, and she decides to take her life.
Her lover, the officer has decided to make the family move out of her house and takes to brute force and tactics that are disrespectful to the well-meaning family.
This movie has a shocking ending which I won't reveal to you, just know that you're not in for a happy ending.
I miss this movie, and plan on purchasing it, because every time the credits start to roll you feel as if it is not over yet. (Please keep in mind that I have a crush on Jennifer Connely...)

Rating:
Summary: Welcome to Heartbreak Hotel, er, House...
Review: You may have never heard of "House of Sand and Fog" as it went over the heads of mainstream audiences as quiet and transparent as the fog itself. But it is worth an extra squabble or two to hunt and experience this movie playing in very limited theaters near you (it is available on DVD right now). Based on a book with the same name by Andre Dubus III, picked by Oprah as her book club selection, this is a very powerful albeit depressing movie that will greatly satisfy those who are craving for an antidote for the usual fun and safe movies. This is a "feel bad" movie, not a "feel good" one, that will leave you very angry and miserable for days to come. Yet, you choose to, because that is exactly the point. The ugly side of human nature is not a pretty thing.

Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley) is a former colonel in the service of Iranian Shah who fled from his country with his wife Nadi, a seemingly spoiled yet very kind woman, and his son Esmail to America. As an immigrant, now living in a country where racism, prejudice and cultural differences seep through quietly yet painfully, Massoud tries to maintain his dignity and pride by working as a road maintenance by day and a cashier at a convenience store by night to provide a good future for his family.

His determination for the American dream rises as he sees a money-making opportunity when he stumbles upon an auction of a house confiscated by the county to pay back taxes. Massoud buys it and fixes it and plans to sell it four times than the original cost. All is well if it isn't for the fact that the house is owned by Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), who inherited it from her deceased father eight months ago. Unfairly evicted by the government just because she couldn't pay her taxes that she shouldn't have been charged for in the beginning, Kathy, an emotionally broken, reformed alcoholic whose husband left her, is now homeless with no money.

The two characters collide like train wreck as Kathy starts to stalk the family, desperately wanting the only stable thing in her life, and Massoud refusing to step down from his decision because it is a necessity for his family. Adding to this, enter a married cop named Lester, whose infatuation of Kathy begins to teeter, corruptly using his profession to threaten Massoud of deporting him and his family back to Iran if he doesn't give the house back.

This combination of three characters kicks off the storyline into high gear, culminating into an unbearable aftermath of tragedy after tragedy (and tragedy after tragedy...I could go on) as a result of pride, selfishness, self-destruction, obsession and misunderstanding. All because of a house, a building that is not just an inanimate structure, but a symbol of security, comfort and dreams. For Massoud, it is a measure of his stature, pride and obtaining American life. For Kathy: an inheritance, hope and sanity.

Under the assured guide of first-time director Vadim Perelman, a Russian who immigrated here in Canada, the characters are surprisingly very real because they aren't portrayed through the usual black and white mentality of good guys are just heroes and bad guys are just villains. The grey area is explored magnificently, our hatred of them switches to empathy and sympathy and vice-versa; we all want them to go through this unscathed (even though we all know this is not the case). These are human beings; smart, civilized and good human beings, whose stupid decisions they commit causes unknowingly severe damages in their own lives and to each other's as well, much to our dismay and sadness, just like what we do in real life.

All actors, notably both Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly, deliver great performances, making this is an electrifying Shakespearean tragedy, highly superior to generic Hollywood weepers, because of their respect for the heavy subject matter and of not playing one-note characters. One can say that Jennifer extends her persona from her character in "Requiem for a Dream". She cries, panics and cries again. But she adds a complex texture of pathos and fragility to her character, that it is not worth the qualms. She is a great actress whose ethereal beauty communicates the underlying emotions of a sad, tragic character. Ben, is of course, one of the best actors ever, gaining a well-deserved Oscar nomination this year. After all, he is Gandhi himself. He is a knock-out as the stubborn but well-intentioned father. This duo is what I call "Bennifer", a miraculous contrast to the other "Bennifer" whose vanity project is the "Ishtar" of the next generation.

The technical aspects of the movie, which are done expertly and all worth applauding for; the haunting, eerie and moody cinematography, the luminous and beautiful transitional shots of the fog rolling on the horizons of the bay, the score by James Horner providing a searing and sinister counterbalance to the restraint and subtle emotions that are eventually going to explode in the end of the movie, are just icing on the cake. It is the capability of the actors that validates us to fully participate with our hearts and minds (and perhaps also to justify that it IS worth sticking with such sadness and misery).

A very beautiful thing to look at, a thought-provoking play of morality, law and culture worth discussing for hours, and an unbelievably painful and excruciating experience to take part in (for good reasons), "House of Sand and Fog" is an intelligent and unique film that features among the most realistic characters in recent cinema, all we weep for by the end.

Witness the heavy whiff of the fog that is both mesmerizing and slated for doom. It also wouldn't hurt to bring your own bottle of Prozac (and perhaps a comedy marathon afterwards)!

Rating:
Summary: The Film versus the Book
Review: I had just finished reading this book, and then I watched the movie. I was dissapointed with the film. Especially the end. I will not spoil anything, but the ending of the book is so much more powerful. The movie unfortunately was doomed by the stupidity of hollywood trying to be clever. Jennifer Conelly is ok in the film, but I don't see what all the talk about and Oscar-worthy performance. Ben Kinsley was ok as well, and portrayed his character well, but was also lacking. Whoever played Lester Burdon was just a complete joke. I would say the only really good performance was by the women who played Beranhi's wife. As far as the movie goes, it was pretty bad directing. The adaption from film to book is decent, and it definately highlights major book points, but many things were left unsaid. This movie to me was like watching a made for television movie. It had very little emotion, no connection with characters. However the story is amazing and I would recommend the book to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: On Damage and Demons
Review: What House of Sand and Fog illustrates so literately is how important the human element is in conflict. While many movies will tend to overemphasize what the characters are striving for, this one keeps bringing us back to the humanity of the characters: their faults, their emotions, their strengths, and their failings.

Consider the What in this case: a run-down split-level house. It is not spectacular in its own right, but it is the childhood home of Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), a lost soul recovering from addiction and the loss of her marriage. This house is all she has. She inherited it from her father, along with all the pain and neuroses that reside with its walls.

She hides there. She hides from life and it's issues, which unfortunately leads her to neglect a tax levied on the property. She contends it's all a mistake, but the government siezes it nonetheless. She is forced to leave, first staying in a dingy motel, then her car.

Seeking a cornerstone of wealth to save his family from encroaching poverty and worse, Behrani (the always dignified Ben Kingsley) purchases the property at an auction. Acquiring the house at a bargain, he intends to fix it up and sell it at market price, quadrupiling his investment. Kathy fights him, first legally, then with help of a morally ambiguous deputy sherriff who has fallen for her.

Exiled from Iran, we see the pain Behrani and his family have endured. They were lucky to escape the collapsing Shah regime, but they have lost their luxurious existence. Now they just want a stake in the American dream. This makes Behrani uncompromising in his claim to the house, but we know why. We also cannot dismiss Kathy, who also comes from a place of pain and fear. We see the validity in her claim to the property, and we are thus completely drawn in.

In the end, we see how destructive behaviors and the disregard for the human element devastate the lives of all involved, and we are left exhausted, and educated, too.

Rating:
Summary: Second-rate Soap by the Sea
Review: This film seems to have scored its good reviews largely on the theory that "if it's tragic, it has to be good"; for my part, I found it one long, excruciatingly boring (yet unintentionally bathetic) exercise in silly implausibility. It's like Hamlet with all the poetry removed, so that all you're left with are absurd characters in absurd situations behaving in a completely irrational manner until an improbably bloody climax. While this may make some folks teary, it made me laugh aloud...not exactly the effect the film-maker was aiming for, I believe.

Ne'er-do-well recovering addict Jennifer Connelly lets her house slip through her fingers for no good reason--failing to open her mail, basically. She's booted from the premises by a hunky cop, who promptly falls head-over-heels for her, and dumps his wife, his family and his career in the toilet for her sake after a single night of (presumably excellent) love-making. Iranian immigrant Ben Kingsley snaps up the house as an investment, a last-ditch effort to try and improve his family's faded fortunes, and chaos ensues when Jennifer decides that, oops, she wants her house back.

There's probably no way a good movie could have been made from such ludicrous starting premises (that is, unless it were radically re-imagined as a farce), but the effort here is further doomed by the hopelessly cliched script--it sounds as if it could have been lifted word for word from an episode of As the World Turns--and by Ben Kingsley's scenery-chewing performance, which I thought was astonishingly bad from so esteemed an actor. Jennifer Connally does what she can with a wholly unsympathetic character (and the aforementioned soap opera dialogue), but the only one who really acquits herself well is Shohreh Aghdashlo as the Iranian's wife: the quiet dignity of her scenes seem to belong to an entirely different movie. Vadim Perelman, the neophyte director, shows some promise, but in the future should leave the screen-writing to someone else...and find better source material while he's at it.

Rating:
Summary: For Those Who Read The Book
Review: Innocent people make simple mistakes in judgment that have disastrous consequences. That is the generalized theme that flows through the book and the movie. A distraught woman tries to get her house back after being evicted. The county made a mistake in taking the house from her. She errs by lacking patience for the legal process to run its course. The deputy sheriff who evicts her falls in love with her, and blunders seriously when he tries to help her resolve her problem. Ben Kingsely is excellent in his role of the proud, stubborn, and flawed former Iranian colonel who is in possession of the house.

This is a magnificent tragedy. The movie generally follows the book extremely closely, even using the same make and color of automobiles described in the novel. I trust you noticed that I used the word "generally". The problem is with the ending. Hollywood steps in to make a significant change that, in my opinion, subverts the intention of the author. I don't want to be a spoiler so will not tell you what the difference is. If you didn't read the book you certainly can still enjoy the movie. I did read the novel first, however, and suffered some disappointment in the the scriptwriters' change of the ending.

Rating:
Summary: this movie is pitifully bad...
Review: and ben kingsley is especially poor in this film. ben was good in gandhi, but a trained monkey could have acted better than ben in this forgettable flick.
seriously, you might have to rent this just to see how bad a former oscar winner can be.

Rating:
Summary: don't waste the precious 2 hours or so of your life.
Review: i saw this movie at the theatre, and was sadly disappointed. i love jennifer connely, and the movie started out ok. it seemed interesting enough at first. but then it just drug on... and on... and my god, on some more. by the end of the movie, everyone around me was in tears and i just found myself thinking "why the hell is everyone crying?" was this movie a cinematic pleasure, tragic and rewarding all at once? perhaps. but definitely not to me.