Taglines: Some dreams can’t be shared.
Based on the acclaimed bestseller by Andre Dubus III. Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley) is living a lie to fulfill a dream. Once a member of the Shah of Iran’s elite inner circle, he has brought his family to America to build a new life. Despite a pretense of continued affluence, he is barely making ends meet until he sees his opportunity in the auction of a house being sold for back taxes. It is a terrible mistake.
Through a bureaucratic snafu, the house had been improperly seized from its rightful owner, Kathy Lazaro (Jennifer Connelly). The loss of her home tears away Kathy’s last hope of a stable life?a life that had been nearly destroyed by addiction and Kathy decides to fight to recover her home at any cost. Academy Award winners Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) star in the dramatic thriller “House of Sand and Fog,” based on the acclaimed bestseller by Andre Dubus.
A gripping exploration of the American Dream gone awry, “House of Sand and Fog” is the story of two people driven to desperate measures to claim ownership of a house. It is only a small bungalow in Northern California, but to Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), it is the last vestige of hope for reclaiming a life that was nearly lost to addiction. When a bureaucratic error forces her eviction, Kathy is left homeless — helpless to stop the house from being sold at auction for a fraction of its worth.
The new owner, Massoud Amir Behrani, sees the house as the fulfillment of the American Dream he has been pursuing since he fled Iran with his family years earlier. A former Colonel in the Iranian Air Force, Behrani has been reduced to working menial jobs to maintain a pretense of affluence. Now he pours the last of his life savings into the purchase of the house that will, at last, bring back the prosperity his family once knew.
As Kathy and Behrani’s fight for the house escalates, Kathy finds an unlikely ally in the officer sent to evict her, Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard), who becomes dangerously devoted to her cause. Caught in the maelstrom are Behrani’s wife, Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and son, Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout).
What begins as a conflict over a small, rundown bungalow spirals into a clash of cultures that propels everyone involved towards an inescapable, and ultimately heartbreaking, climax. “House of Sand and Fog” exposes the unsettling truth that it is sometimes our hopes and not our hatreds that divide us. The film also stars Ron Eldard (Black Hawk Down), major Iranian film star Shohreh Aghdashloo, newcomer Jonathan Ahdout, and Frances Fisher (Titanic) as Kathy’s attorney who tries to help her reclaim her home.
Read the Full Production Notes
Directed by: Vadim Perelman
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly, Ron Eldard, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Kim Dickens, Carlos Gomez
Screenplay by: Vadim Perelman
Cinematography by: Roger Deakins
Film Editing by: Lisa Zeno Churgin
Music by: James Horner
MPAA Rating: R for some violence / disturbing images, language and a scene of sexuality.
Studio: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: December 26, 2003
