House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Directed by Vadim Perelman. Starring Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard, Shoreh Aghdashloo, Frances Fisher, Jonathan Ahdout, Al Rodrigo, Kim Dickens, Navi Rawat. [R]

Mostly well-acted but far-fetched misery-stew meller set in San Francisco and based on a novel by Andre Dubus III. Depressed recovering addict Connelly is evicted from her home because of a misunderstanding involving back taxes, and a family of Iranian immigrants headed by Kingsley’s ex-colonel Massoud Amir Behrani swoops in to buy it at a fraction of its true value during the auction. After unsuccessfully trying to reclaim the house through legal means, Connelly loses her patience and self-control, Kingsley refuses to bend or sympathize, her new cop boyfriend (Eldard) escalates to racist threats of deportation, and it keeps snowballing from there. Connelly, Aghdashloo (as Behrani’s wife) and Kingsley overcome the muddled details of their characters, but Eldard strikes toneless notes repeatedly with line readings that don’t match words with emotions. The reason the film falls apart, though, is because of the faulty, pandering screenplay (adapted by director Perelman and Shawn Lawrence Otto)—the consistently insensible decision-making is contrived enough to feel like a warm-up for Crash; couldn’t anyone have made a smart, reasonable choice just once in the last hour? Handsomely photographed by Roger Deakins. The book’s author cameos as a police officer.

46/100