Oscar nominated and acclaimed "The House of Sand and Fog", is a difficult movie with many dimensions and storytelling attributes, but nonetheless, this grim tale of cultural clashes gives a stark and grim moral in cultural difference in sensibilities and materials, and ultimately it's about the cultural gap between Iranians and Americans and the characters here all have different meanings toward possessions. Connelly plays Kathy, a very troubled young woman and Pariah of her family who lives at her father's house and tends to it living mostly as a shut-in and suddenly she's kicked out forcibly.

She's discovered all of her father's payments for the house all of the years she's known him were basically in vain since she still unknowingly owes five hundred dollars and has no way of getting it to finish the payments. So, she is basically homeless now, becoming entangled with a police officer whose intent on helping her, but for what purposes, we discover. Meanwhile, ex-Iranian dictator Behrani has come to America with his family and now works as a blue-collared workaday employee taking what job he can to rebuild his fortune and he stumbles upon the house and buys it, again, for reasons other than living in it.

He's still sure he can re-claim the empire he once ruled and is very unaware that it's basically an impossible dream to grasp. Connelly sees her house as the remaining memento of her family she cannot get back, the memento of simpler times that drown out her constant failures in this life, and Kingsley's character sees the house as more of a stepping stone towards wealth that he was never able to re-claim after losing it in America, while the house does manage to grow on him and his family, nonetheless he wants it to re-build his fortune. Meanwhile Eldard's character sits on the outside of the situation with no idea what's going on approaching the situation with a lot of ignorance and lack of empathy.

Connelly gives moody a new meaning here with her excellent performance as the troubled Kathy who knows she wants to re-start her life, but doesn't know how, and she clings to the house because there are ghosts of her past there that are constant reminders of her happiness that once was. The truly good performances come from Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Agdashloo, the two whom play an Iranian couple with so much dedication, including Kingsley who is utterly magnificent here. Why he didn't win the Oscar here is beyond me, because this man is very believable as an Iranian man. He can do practically any role with dedication and hardly is her ever far-fetched.

Shohreh Adgashloo manages to give an inspiring performance as the sometimes domineering Nadri who experiences the changes in her life with much stress and confusion. She has no idea what to make of re-building their life back to what it once was and has no idea how to welcome change. The characters in here were once something in the life before, and in this life, they're basically empty and rather insignificant. Kingsley's character Behrani who was once powerful in his previous country has now become insignificant, yet another immigrant toiling away at job after job, but still continues to attempt to build on his fortune. He, his son, and his wife Nadri were once important people and continue clinging onto their self-image that they're still royalty though refuse to believe they've become just another person in the country, America holds no respect for them, and they realize that but make no attempt to accept it.

Nadri and Behrani run their household with the usual sense of aristocracy and Behrani takes a lot of shame in working everyday mundane jobs; once powerful in his country he's saddened that he's seen as a mere civilian in America, while Nadri continues to do nothing but complain though supportive in her ways. Connelly's character is basically a ghost, or a shell, someone who hasn't succeeded in anything in years and, along with her pale complexion, and hollowed out demeanor, she continues ruining things for people throughout the story as it progresses. She's a person who wants to live a good life, but just has
no idea how to, and she doesn't want to live with her family whom she considers troublesome.

Family is a central theme here as well where Connelly's character despises hers, Behrani's family is united despite horrible odds and the notion that they can not go back to Iran, and Eldard's character who takes them for granted. Eldard can play obnoxious very well as was seen in "Bastard out of Carolina" and here, he's one really ass. Surely enough, with the themes, and plateaus and dimensions there are some truly incredible performances here are that will blow you away. Surely, director Vadim Perelman gives stunning cinematography along with a mood that often makes it seem like moving paintings with misty, moody pastels of gray and blue. "House of Sand and Fog" has genuinely heartbreaking moments that will tug at your emotions and is an achievement in drama and art.

The House of Sand and Fog with all of its allegories and symbolism can also be hard to follow with a story that features such a large array of complex, intricate characters. The story may detach anyone from it in the first place and the message may not come off on some. For such a well-directed piece, "Sand and Fog" can also be very grim and depressing thus detracting people from the events taking place. The story is hard to follow, sometimes almost impossible to make what sense of what is occurring in front of our eyes, and it doesn't give us a chance to catch up with the situations. Characters here don't draw us in, so we get bored and lag on to a hope that something good will happen through the minutes and minutes of dialogue upon dialogue and melodramatic incidents that never makes us interested, and it took a good while for me to become even slightly interested in what was happening in the story, sometimes I just didn't care, and there were times where a lot of nothing that seemed to be leading up to nothing. The film's ending is ultimately left with a question mark, but the characters and the way they're dealt with in the plot resolution is so manipulative in the finisher that I just didn't care enough.

Sometimes alienating in its characters and plot, bouts of boredom ensue, and all are very hard to follow, but in the end what emerges is a meaningful and depressing allegory for cultural difference with incredible performances from Kinglsey, Agdashloo, and Connelly.