Those of you who have bought a house, flat or due to current rip-off prices a shoe box will know that buying a home can be a stressful business. Expensive solicitors, crooked estate agents and flakey sellers can make sleeping rough seem an attractive option. However once those shiny keys are in your grubby hands most would think their moving troubles were over. However, if you find the ex-owner to be suicidal alcoholic, who believes you are a heartless thief, it might be wise to keep the champagne on ice a little while longer.
Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley) is the unlucky sod who inherits more then rising damp from the previous owner. An Iranian immigrant who fled with his family to the U.S. in search of the American dream, he was rich and well respected colonel before the fall of the Shah . However in the US things take a turn for the worse and he has to take on a number of menial jobs serving at a petrol station and digging ditches just to keep his head above water. Pride prevents him from telling his family who think he is a successful businessman because he changes from his work wear into an expensive suit before returning home.
Massoud spots a way out of the drudgery when he notices an auction of bankrupt property and risks the family's savings on a knock down pacific coast bungalow hoping to do it up and sell it on for a profit. He doesn't bank on Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), it's previous unhinged owner, who feels that the house has been wrongfully seized and whose desperation causes ever increasing tensions between them as she attempts to get her house back by fair means or foul.
At this point I should say that far from being a 2 hour long episode of House Invaders this is a fantastic if ultimately shocking film. Forget car chases, exotic locations or gratuitous nudity (wait... come back!) this film is complete character piece exploring the human condition, relationship dynamics, fate, cultural disparities and the fact that seemingly simple decisions can create unfathomable complexities.
Ben Kingsley is mesmerising and utterly convincing as a proud if flawed family man struggling to make a life for his loved ones in an alien culture. Being half Iranian myself I can say with authority that he nails the cultural model of the Iranian father; a principled, hard, volatile exterior on the surface with a tender emotional centre, like a particularly akward soft boiled egg. Without giving to much away towards the end of the film his performance is so heartfelt that I honestly had a lump in my throat.
To compliment Sir Ben, Connelly's character mirrors Behrani in that despite her flaws she is a good person who has just hit hard times. Connelly reprises her role in Requiem for a Dream, as a recovering addict who has emotional scars that have yet to heal. Her life seems to have been unravelling at the same speed as her mind with the loss of her father, the break up of her marriage (which she keeps form her family the same way Behrani's career is kept from his) with the final straw being the loss of her house due to her depression fueled lethargy in answering the mail.
Whilst not quite on par with her co-star, her performance provides sufficient ying to Kingsley's yang. It is to the director's (Vadim Perelman) credit that the viewer's sympathy shifts between the two central characters during the film. The house symbolises more then just bricks and mortar for them both and it isn't difficult to have a certain sympathy with both characters. As their fortunes go from bad to worse I was hooked as to how the whole sorry mess would end. Let's just say the climax is no Pretty Woman.
A word of warning: if you are feeling hung over, depressed or hoping for a breezy comedy on the perils of buying a house this isn't the film for you. However, I would strongly recommend this to the thoughtful ones among you who are interested in the darker side of life. Just pop a couple a valium on the way out of the cinema and you should be fine.
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