Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

beddie_ell This is a beautifully executed piece. movie art at its highest. the movie stands on its own but still leaves the thoughtful viewer wondering if there is some deeper message. There are many possibilities. So here goes my take. The catalyst that sets the whole plot in motion is a careless women who inherits a house, doesn't pay a bill, ignores the warnings and loses the house when a judgement is entered against the property. The very clear moral is that everyday obligations can become very large and tragic ones if ignored or not properly discharged. The Ben Kingsley character is an Iranian military officer that had to flee Iran when the Shah (a puppet dictator of the US) was deposed in a popular student-led uprising. He struggles to maintain his dignity and pride and support his family in America. Kingsley buys the house at a sheriff sale. Issues abound as to what is right, what is fair, what is just, what is legal and what is humane. Is all this an indictment of the US supporting a despot ruler in Iran to protect its oil interests? Is Iran the house of fog and sand that the US must lose because it ignored the due bill that was the human rights of the Iranian people? The popular overthrow of the US-supported regime in Iran was followed by the installment of the extremist radical Islam theocracy that survives to the present. Civil war in Israel, Lebanon and Syria, nuclear weapon proliferation, world-wide terrorism, and impossible instability in the Middle East ensued. The due bill now is vastly greater than a price of a few million barrels of oil.

Sam-953-169285 I can't enjoy the movie because it is so stupid. I can't believe this movie is realistic at all. As is so typical of movies, there are some legal details that we are supposed to just ignore that I can't.I watched nearly all of it but it just kept getting worse until it became so tragic that I refuse to watch any more. If you feel cheated by movies that start sweet and then slowly become sour then totally ugly then this is that kind of movie.Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is so sweet. I won't say anything about the horrible things that she either does or has done to her but the beginning is very misleading. I have never noticed Jennifer Connelly before but I sure notice her in this movie.Ben Kingsley does an excellent job of playing a man that deserves disgust. His character is Persian in this movie and you might not mind that he has also played an Indian (Gandhi) but that distracts from the movie for me.

Steve Pulaski NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Diane Rio for "Steve Pulaski Sees It." It took roughly half an hour before I could become completely immersed in Vadim Perelman's House of Sand and Fog, and after that, I was gone. Here's a powerful, deathly serious adult drama, a rarity in a world so concerned with comedies that feature the next viral gag or meme, or the next big romance film that becomes a national sensation. The demographic usually left out of the picture is those who want a competent, R-rated adult drama, and aside from the end of the year, when American audiences tend to get bombarded with new releases, there's rarely a time when that selected demographic gets its due (even this film came out in December 2003, amidst a busy awards season).It doesn't matter now, for House of Sand and Fog left a noticeable mark during its theatrical run and still finds itself a popular favorite on network TV. This is wonderful, because this is a uniquely great film; a film that takes a representation of something most of hold near and dear to us (our house/home), has two characters from two wildly different, troubled backgrounds pitted against the fight to claim the home, and features strong, eerie photography from one of the best cinematographers working today.The film focuses on a recovering drug addict named Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), who lives alone in a small home in San Francisco. After ignoring numerous eviction notices believing they are part of a misunderstanding she cleared up several months ago, she is forcibly evicted from her home, which is to be auctioned off before she can even seek any kind of legal backing. As a result, a former Iranian Army Colonel named Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley), who fled Iran with his wife Nadereh (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and his son Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout), purchases the home for a fraction of its actual value with intent to add additions and improvements to triple his money on the home.This begins a bitter war between both Kathy and Behrani between what is moral and what is legally acceptable; Kathy enlists in the help of the town's Sheriff Deputy Lester Burton (Ron Eldard) to try and allows Kathy to purchase the house back, a house that has sentimental value for her and her family. Behrani, who has full legal right to do whatever he pleases with the home, doesn't see through Kathy's tearful side, and as a result, continues to go forward with his plans to renovate the home and totally transform it into a new house.House of Sand and Fog contrasts ability and inability quite beautifully throughout the course of its runtime, a nice and freeing two-hour and three minute long window for the film to carefully assemble its characters and their situations to try and build sympathy for them. Behrani's ability to purchase and completely redesign the home that Kathy doesn't have the ability to purchase is nicely communicated by way of methodically brewing tension between the two parties; it's tension that never becomes theatrical, nor does it ever lack any kind of narrative conviction. Connelly plays a disheveled character that has repeatedly been beaten by her personal choices, with her current situation simply serving as another grim reminder of her ostensible inability to do anything right, and Kingsley plays a devilishly interesting, enigmatic man of many talents and rewards who sees no sentimentality in Kathy's situation - only opportunity.At the center of the story is the passive home, where numerous characters do unto it what they like, but what it does to them is probably even more significant. This is a home with such promise and value that it remains the only thing our lead character Kathy stays alive for, it seems, and it's a home that could make Behrani, his wife, and his son more affluent and well-off in their current situation. Through looming exterior shots that show gray overcast skies and dense fog covering the landscapes, cinematographer Roger Deakins, arguably the best cinematographer working today, showcases the house's visceral effects by way of uncommonly elaborate closeups and candid shots of the home. No matter what screenwriters Perelman and Shawn Lawrence Otto illustrate for us by way of dialog or narrative progress, House of Sand and Fog's true meaning and significance is illustrated by the dark and beautiful balance crafted by Deakins.The sadness of the film's story rolls in like pea-soup fog itself, and we're left as viewers just as passive in a physical sense as the home itself, which has such an uncompromising effect on its two individuals that it's almost impossible to look past. Buoyed by two strong lead performances and a masterclass of cinematography, House of Sand and Fog works to illustrate the best tendencies of an adult drama, even coming around to make us feel significantly impacted by the end.Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Johnathan Ahdout, and Ron Erland. Directed by: Vadim Perelman.

elle_kittyca This is totally a review with spoilers. I wrote this review mostly because I was really annoyed at the ten out of ten stars that was given to it by the fist review on IMDb. Too many films are given too high a rating and this is one of them in my opinion, although it is a pretty good film in some ways. I understand the book was excellent, and I love the themes that it explores. But a few things did not work for me. Most notably, while I generally love Ben Kingsley, I did not like his portrayal of the Iranian Colonel. The character, who experiences a lot of internal conflict, never seems authentic to me. He's stiff and unlikable at the beginning, and displays more humanity later (which is an essential part of the development of the movie.) But the changes in character seem pretty arbitrary. I don't see much nuance-just an either/or. I don't see the development, or the anguish. The officer who is Jennifer Connolly's love interest does some really unbelievable things, things not justified by his similarly unemotional character. I don't think its unbelievable that a cop would coerce someone, but you would think he might have to be carried away by his emotions to be taking two hostages in broad daylight to city hall. And the Iranians have ample opportunity to escape their captivity in this ludicrous trip. Yes, people do ridiculous and ill-advised things. Connolly's character's feelings/emotional state justify her behaviour. For me, the other characters do not display the emotional signs of being under the stress that motivates their characters. For me it was just not believable. There were a few good performances, great musical score, good atmosphere, but overall, meh.