House of Sand and Fog (DVD)

House of Sand and Fog (2003) starring Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard, Frances Fisher. Connelly is almost too beautiful for this role, in which she portrays Kathy Nicolo, an alcoholic who finds herself evicted from her home -- inherited from her father -- for nonpayment of taxes. Kingsley plays an Iranian exile who sees in the house an opportunity for his family to bootstrap itself up in class. He buys the house at auction, but he doesn't anticipate Kathy's fierce determination to get her house back. With the help of a deputy sheriff (Eldard) who has taken a shine to her, Kathy brings pressure on the Iranian family to surrender the house. It's a situation that practically guarantees that there can be no happy ending to the film, and sure enough it ends in tragedy. The movie tries, perhaps a bit too hard, to be poetic. It almost gets there. Grade: B+