Review of House of Sand and Fog (2003) by Mikko M — 26 May 2009

The thing is, I only really have sympathy for two characters. Just about everyone in the whole picture had a chance to resolve things with just a little thought. Swallowing of pride would have to happen, and compromises would have to be reached. Of course, the whole story could have been avoided if only, well, if only a lot of really, really simple steps had been taken before it even started. And after it did, people--essentially all of them--behaved like idiots, like [i]children[/i]. None of them are willing to give an inch. All of them are completely captivated by their own wants and needs, not worrying about who they hurt, even if they are only hurting themselves. And they are, in addition to hurting everyone else. The results are just stupid. The whole story. Oh, sure, if any one of the three main characters had showed real sense, it would be an awfully short movie. But it's what I felt while reading the book and now what I feel about the movie. It's a sordid, unpleasant tale that leaves you feeling dirty.

Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is depressed. I don't know if it's clinical or not; I don't think it is. At any rate, her husband has left her, and she just kind of curls up in a corner for months. Perhaps eight months before the story begins, she receives a notice that she owes taxes for a business supposedly operated out of the house. It's not; it never was. She goes down to the county and explains this to them, and they fill out some forms and tell her not to worry about it. And at some point in the intervening months, she just stops checking her mail, so she never receives the notices that tell her that the county apparently hasn't sorted out the issue, and her first awareness of it is when county officials show up on her doorstep and tell her that she's being evicted. A few days later, a former colonel from the Shah's service (there is some uncertainty about whether he was a member of the secret police or not), Behrani (Sir Ben Kingsley) buys her house at auction, intended to flip it as a start to a real economic future. After all they left behind in Iran, he now works on a road crew during the day and a convenience store clerk at night. However, Kathy is not willing to let her house go; it's the house she grew up in, the house her father left her--and her brother, to whom she has told nothing. She gets policeman Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard) involved, which does not end up being a good thing for anyone.

All three of the main characters are idiots. Kathy and Lester almost immediately form a horrible, co-dependent relationship. He is one of the people who helps evict her, and he ends up leaving his wife and children for her. Behrani is too consumed with regaining his personal pride to worry about whether what he's doing is right or wrong. Yes, all right, as the special features share, everyone goes through a period where they just want to stay in bed for months at a time; we are told that this doesn't make her weak. And that's true. What's weak is that she [i]does[/i] stay in bed for months at a time. She has no friends. She has family that doesn't really enter the story. Her husband has left her. She has no support network to make her get up and at least seek help, which she clearly needs, especially if she [i]is[/i] clinically depressed. Behrani can tell that she's not quite right, of course, but even if there were something that he could do about it, he's afraid it will jeopardize what he has started to build. And it doesn't even seem to occur to Lester--to the point that he actually encourages her to restart bad habits we know she has worked hard to overcome.

On the other hand, there is Nadi Bahrani (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who is clearly torn between trying to do right for this strange girl and trying to do right for her family. She was taught that she must be subserviant to her husband, but she clearly thinks his unwillingness to comrpomise is a problem. She is trying to be a good Iranian woman, but she is also raising Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout), who is growing up into an American. She fears being deported; there is some implication that Bahrani was not quite truthful on their visa applications and citizenship paperwork. (The threat of citizenship and the automatic belief that, as foreigners, the Bahranis aren't worthy of their dreams is a pervasive theme, highlighted in the book by Bahrani's attitude toward Arabs. He is Farsi; he is above them. But here, no one cares about that distinction.) She must do as her husband says, of course, but she does feel such pity for Kathy. Esmail is all but innocent, but Nadi is completely innocent, the only person in the film really working to do well by anyone.

I have often said that it is hard for me to get into a work when I have no sympathy for the main character, and this story is in many ways no exception. Kathy is told, very clearly, that contact with the Bahranis is a bad idea, and she does it anyway. She yells at her lawyer (Frances Fisher, who is very highly billed for such a small role) because the law doesn't work quickly enough, and Kathy has no intention of telling her family what has happened. She must get her house back before they visit, and she seems to believe her lawyer can make that happen and will not listen when she's told how unlikely that is. But Bahrani is little better. He's caught up in an image of who he used to be, and the possibility that he's never going to be that person again doesn't occur to him. As for Lester . . . in a way, it seems that Kathy has brought out unpleasant aspects of himself that he needed an excuse to reveal. The three of them conspire without intention to create a situation that cannot end well for anyone.