House of Sand and Fog: Blows

I saw this movie a few days ago, but just now saw a TV ad promoting it. If the makers of the film do not have the humanity to pull the ads for this useless nothing of a film, decent people must speak out.

With a very capable cast, this show does nothing. The plot begins reasonably, but unfolds ridiculously. Jennifer Connelly lives in a house left by her husband to her; a mistake by the county has them seize it, which Connelly hardly fights herself, due to her depression over her husband's departure. It is immediately sold to a former Iranian general, played by Ben Kingsley, for 25% of its value -- he is poor in the US, and he aspires to sell it and regain his family's happiness. As Connelly's charachter's legal assistance works its way through, the general refuses to sell back to the county for anything but the full value of the home. Subsequently, both their situation's deteriorate.

And this is why the plot unfolding is ridiculous. In real life, the general and Connelly's character would come together and force the county to pony up for the full value of the home, which would make the general move out and let Connelly move back in. Problem solved. It was obvious to me as soon as it came up, and so the rest of the film lost my interest. I can chalk this up to bad writing.

However, Derek has an un-annunciated theory about this, and a few other, flims. Derek suggests that, if one assumes intelligent writers, the inability of the characters to respond rationally to their difficult siutations with simple solutions is always related to depression in the characters. The flim plot becomes harrowing, because we can see the simple solution, and are dismayed that the characters do not take it. He calls this "desperation" -- essentially, that these films are about tragedy which happens to people whose fundamental flaw is crippling depression and an apathy about their situation.