House of Sand and Fog (2003) on Netflix
Kathy Nicolo, a recovering drug addict abandoned by her husband, loses her Bay Area house over taxes she never owed. Massoud Behrani, a former colonel who fled Iran, buys it to resell.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.5/1076,294 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
Kathy Nicolo lives by herself in a small house near San Francisco Bay and ignores eviction notices for business taxes she does not owe. She assumes the mix-up was cleared up, but Sheriff's Deputy Lester Burdon comes to evict her and says the home will be auctioned. Massoud Behrani, a colonel in the former Imperial Iranian Army who fled his homeland, works several menial jobs while keeping up the appearance of a businessman. He pays a quarter of the property's value for it and starts repairs. Kathy, out of her motel and sleeping in her car, finds attorney Connie Walsh, who says the county's mistake should restore the house to her. Behrani has spent money on the property and wants more than the county will pay.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about House of Sand and Fog (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Harvey Weinstein wanted Todd Field to direct instead of Vadim Perelman and tried to buy Perelman off with $500,000, a producer credit, and his choice of any script on the Miramax slate, but Perelman turned the offer down and kept the film.
- Julianne Moore was originally attached to play Kathy, but director Vadim Perelman switched to Jennifer Connelly at the eleventh hour after meeting her.
- Shohreh Aghdashloo had been a respected actress in Iran before immigrating to the United States, where she found herself offered only terrorist and villain roles; she left for a stage career instead, and this film marked her return to the screen after almost twenty years away.
- Jonathan Ahdout, a boy whose only acting experience was school plays, was cast as Esmail just two days before filming began, after director Vadim Perelman had doubts about the actor he had already hired and rewatched Ahdout's original audition tape, seeing something in it he had missed the first time.
- The house at the center of the story is set in a fictional Half Moon Bay but was actually filmed in Malibu, and the production deliberately staged the property to look more neglected and weathered than it really was, so it would seem less desirable.
