House Of Sand And Fog vs In The Bedroom

There’s a scene in House of Sand and Fog, where a character steps on a nail, barefoot. It’s one of those moments where the entire audience cringes, and as the movie continued, I found that I couldn’t turn mine off. I was on full-cringe for the rest of the movie. Not because I couldn’t stop thinking about the time, as a kid, I stepped on a toothpick and it went ALL THE WAY INTO MY FOOT, but rather, because House of Sand and Fog is an incredibly tense drama and thriller. And, I don’t mean thriller in the way that Sliver is a thriller, but that House of Sand and Fog is truly thrilling. It’s a fantastic movie.

Jennifer Connelly stars as Kathy Nicolo, a lonely woman in the midst of a fairly severe depression. Her husband walked out eight months ago, the mail is piled up in front of her door, and her tear ducts are on constant well. Her mother calls to check up on her, but I think maybe she was calling to catch her in a lie, either about the whereabouts of her husband, or her continuing status as a recovering alcoholic (she’s sober, but it’s obvious Kathy hasn’t recovered from much.) Partly through a technical error with the county tax office, and partly (read: mainly) because Kathy just hasn’t been reading her mail, she’s evicted from her house. She’s shocked; Kathy inherited the house from her father, and probably assumed all the taxes were paid. There’s no telling anyone that, though, and she’s given one day to evacuate. One of the police officers on the scene, Lester (Ron Eldard), takes pity on Kathy, and they strike up a friendship. Lester is protective of Kathy, and feels a kinship with her over her husband walking out, mostly because he wishes he could do the same thing to his wife. Why this isn’t a red flag to Kathy becomes less of a point later in the film, when she asks Lester, on his way out the door, if he’s coming back, and then quickly adds “I’ll understand if you don’t.”

At auction, Kathy’s house is snatched up by Massoud Amir Behrani, played by Ben Kingsley. Behrani is a former Iranian Colonel, recently immigrated to the United States with his wife and son. We get an idea of the riches he left behind during an early scene at his daughter’s wedding, and with smaller clues, like his elegant furniture and the Mercedes he drives. Behrani works two jobs now, one on a road crew, and another in a convenience store, but he washes up in the lobby of his de-luxe apartment building, and puts on a suit before returning home. Whether this is to continue some sort of charade for his family, or to maintain his own dignity, is left unanswered. Feeling that this new house could be the jumpstart his family needs, both financially and in terms of self-esteem, Behrani moves them in immediately, and begins construction, trying to increase the market value of the home.

Kathy, as you can imagine, is not in favor of this development.

There are many, many other movies in which this set-up would have resulted in Kathy getting all Hand that Rocks the Cradle / Unlawful Entry / Pacific Heights on the Behranis, or Mr. Behrani going all Death and the Maiden / Apt Pupil on her. But no, House of Sand and Fog refuses to take a side in the matter, showing us reasons to feel sympathy for each character.

It’s that Lester who messes everything up. Man, what a moron.

House of Sand and Fog is the first movie directed by Vadim Perelman, and he does a hell of a job. So many scenes seem like scenes that have come before (Kathy goes back to her house several times), but each one goes to unexpected lengths. House of Sand and Fog is also beautiful visually, with wide beaches bathed in golden sunlight, then obscured by dense gray fog. The house of the title is a small bungalow with a great view, sort of, if you stand on the roof and look through some power lines. Perelman makes great use of the interior of the house, turning its narrow hallway and small rooms into a shadowy maze.

A gun is introduced into the plot late in the story, and how and when and by whom it is used, or not, is one of the more intriguing, terrifying, and ultimately crushing aspects of the movie. Kathy’s moment with it is especially wrenching. As Kathy, Jennifer Connelly is great. She’s wounded, inside and out, but finds ways of drawing on her former happiness to get by. You can see her recalling old experiences and trying to apply them to new situations, like when she and Lester have dinner and we see her slowly starting to flirt and have fun. It’s as if she doesn’t actually feel these things, but knows they’re expected.

Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo (man, Spell-check loves that one), as Mr. and Mrs. Behrani, are stunning. These are easily two of the best performances of this year. Kingsley is such a smart, emotional actor. He has scenes of great force and anger in House of Sand and Fog (he pulls Kathy back to her car by her arm, but I’m pretty sure he could have done it with a look.), but also of surprising delicacy. Near the end, when he cries “I only want my son,” his sadness is as genuine as I’ve seen in a movie. Aghdashloo plays Mrs. Behrani as a woman who knows her place, and is smart enough to realize that her place is actually three or four different places, most only for her to know. She might not be the official head of her household, but she runs it, and is probably the reason it exists in the first place.

And don’t even get me started on Lester, that jackass.

Like House of Sand and Fog, In the Bedroom is a thriller hiding inside a family drama. It has a couple shaken by violence, a lonely woman they find themselves cautiously involved with, and of course, a gun that turns up at the worst moment possible.

In the Bedroom stars Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek as Matt and Ruth Fowler. They have a college-aged son, Frank (Nick Stahl), who’s home for the summer, and having a fling with a local woman named Natalie (Marisa Tomei). Natalie has two young kids, and is married-but-separated. Frank insists their relationship is just a summer thing, but Matt and Ruth suspect more, and they’re right. Natalie and Frank seem to be in love; for Frank, it’s probably the first time, for Natalie the first in a long time. Natalie’s estranged husband is Richard, and he’s pretty horrible. In the Bedroom is a couple years old now, so I’m not going to be as vague about it as I was with House of Sand and Fog. If you haven’t seen In the Bedroom, you’ll want to skip the next sentence. (If you’re like me, being told to skip a sentence insures that you’ll read it.)

Richard, that moron, kills Frank.

This event—you know, the one in the sentence you weren’t supposed to read—shatters the lives of everyone involved, and turns In the Bedroom into a deeper, darker movie. It’s brilliant. Matt and Ruth occupy their house in near silence, each secretly blaming the other for Frank’s death. Matt tries to work and pretend life is normal; Ruth chain-smokes and watches TV all day. Spacek and Wilkinson are incredible. They each give careful, subtle performances, some of the best in two careers of amazing variety. There are guns fired during In the Bedroom, but the harshest act of violence is a slap from Ruth. Spacek allows her to be silent and mournful just long enough that the slap is delivered to the entire audience. It’s not just violence, it’s release.

As Frank and Natalie, Nick Stahl and Marisa Tomei are also exceptionally good. Tomei has been underappreciated in movies for years now, mainly because she made the mistake of being funny and interesting. She’s both of those things in In the Bedroom as well, but here she’s also heartbreaking.

And I haven’t even mentioned Richard, that jackass.

Like House of Sand and Fog, In the Bedroom has a first-time director. Todd Field lets scenes play out clearly, in real time. Characters have actual conversations, following each other from room to room. He’s also surprisingly deft at the movie’s transitions from romance to drama to thriller. The final scene, in, uh, the bedroom, is a creepy moment of realization, revenge and relief, all in only about a minute. That the entire movie builds to that exact moment without selling out or losing focus is as shocking as the scene that precedes it.

House of Sand and Fog: A
In the Bedroom: A