The idea of a simmering thriller based on real estate tax foreclosure might sound impossible, but House of Sand and Fog breaks all preconceived notions about the yawn-inducing subject matter.  Even better, Fog is the most assured English language debut to hit screens since the equally dark and creepy American Beauty.

The finest film adaptation of anything ever chosen for Oprah's Book Club has two main characters whose paths cross over the titular house and the aforementioned tax foreclosure.  Jennifer Connelly (Hulk) is Kathy Nicolo, an attractive, recently divorced woman living in a San Francisco home she inherited from her father.  Kathy is a lazy sack of shit, as well as a recovering junkie and alcoholic who can't even muster the energy to open her mail.  Had she found the strength to do so, she would have learned about the error down at the tax collector's office and likely would have stopped local sheriffs from enforcing the surprise early morning eviction we see in one of Fog's first scenes.

Meanwhile, Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley, Tuck Everlasting) sees the listing for the foreclosure and snatches up the house at auction for a fraction of its value.  Massoud used to be a colonel in the Iranian Air Force, and the cash stockpile he escaped with during the Islamic Revolution has been steadily dwindling as he tries to keep his family living the life to which they became accustomed in the old country.  His wife (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and son (Jonathan Ahdout) think he has a well-paying, fancy office job, but Massoud secretly has two rather menial gigs.  Massoud sees the house as a new beginning for himself and his family.

That's the setup, and the rest of Fog plays out as a painful attempt by Kathy to get her house back before her mom comes for a visit.  She befriends one of the cops (Ron Eldard) who evicted her, which adds a very unique element to Fog's story.  Even though there aren't traditional Hero and Villain roles in the film, I can picture a lot of viewers siding with Kathy and her struggle because she's cute and white (a/k/a The American Dream), while comfortably tagging Massoud as the picture's antagonist just because he was born in Dubya's dreaded Axis of Evil.

Film school dropout-turned-television commercial director Vadim Perelman, Fog's screenwriter and director, plays this up to delicious success before pulling the old switcheroo in the second half (it's almost as cool as the one Billy Ray did in Shattered Glass).  Aside from 21 Grams, you aren't going to find a better ensemble cast in a 2003 release, with Kingsley, Connelly and Aghdashloo all likely to be in the Oscar hunt.  And just when you thought you had seen San Francisco and its various landmarks filmed in every way possible, Roger Deakins (Intolerable Cruelty) bends the rules with some startling photography.

Fog is based on a novel written by Andre Dubus III, who is the son of the late Andre Dubus – the author of 2001 Oscar contender In the Bedroom.  Aside from the entire story taking place over a laughably short period of time, it's one unforgettable trip.

2:06 -

for some violence/disturbing images, language and a scene of sexuality