[6]

Jennifer Connelly plays a woman wrongfully evicted from her home. Before she can go through the proper channels to get it back, Ben Kingsley and his family have already moved in. That’s when The House of Sand and Fog turns into a tug of war between the characters that spirals quickly and tragically out of control. At first, I thought this was going to be a more polite rendition of Pacific Heights, but it actually turns out to be far more devastating than that movie. I had a little trouble accepting that all this drama was warranted — I mean, Kingsley’s just trying to flip the house for profit, and Connelly would have been able to keep the house if she’d just checked her mail more often. If you run with it, the movie will take you to all kinds of sadsville. Solid performances from the entire cast, including Shohreh Aghdashloo as Kingsley’s wife and Ron Eldard as a cop who takes pity on Connelly’s plight. With Frances Fisher.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor (Kingsley), Best Supporting Actress (Aghdashloo), Best Score (James Horner)