'House of Sand and Fog' is a kind of horror film, ahead of its time

House of Sand and Fog is many things -- one of the saddest movies ever made, perhaps one of the more nuanced portraits of Middle Eastern characters that's ever come out of Hollywood, but it also plays as a horror film, one where the consequences and calamity have more to do with race than supernatural menace.

It came out in 2003, during the height of Iraq War fervor, and its easy to see how the film could have been viewed then as antidote to mindless Islamaphobia and stereotyping.

Ben Kingsley, in a towering performance, plays the stern and stubborn head of a household of Iranian exiles. They are not cowering, victimized refugees, but instead proud and spiteful towards the radicalized Ayotollahs who pushed them out of their native country.

They pointedly do not view themselves as Arabs -- although their adopted country almost certainly does -- and Kingsley's character is so attached to his former wealth and status, he meticulously works several menial jobs so his family can live in relative luxury and put on heirs.

He hatches a plan (or scheme, depending on your point of view) to save up his meager wealth to invest in a property that he will then flip for a profit so he can secure a sustained economic future for his wife and young son. It's a most American and capitalist idea that runs into an unintended roadblock in the personage of Jennifer Connelly's character, who is almost the walking/talking personification of white privilege.

A number of twists and turns ensue, where the ignorance and self-centeredness of Connelly's character (and by extension her half-wit new lover, played by Ron Eldard) plunges all of these characters into an abyss of bad decisions and eventually, death.

It's all a bit heavy, perhaps too on the nose, yet incredibly affecting because it is that rare film where we actually are forced to see the collateral damage that a lack of empathy for what is commonly referred to as "the other" can wrought.

Now, I must confess that I have never read the source material, so I'm not sure how this movie compares. It almost certainly collapses the time in which the events of the plot unfold, which is why it could be condemned as overheated melodrama by some critics.

But I think its detractors are missing some of its innate power -- besides Kingsley's Oscar-nominated lead performance and Shohreh Aghdashloo's heartbreaking supporting one -- the film makes a genuine effort to humanize everyone in it.

Normally, narratives of this kind would almost solely focus on the Connelly character, and go out of its way to stack the deck in her favor. This film does not give her the benefit of the doubt. It also doesn't shy away for conveying the fact that Kingsley's character is a misogynist at best and an occasionally abusive husband at worst.

Films like this, which are few and far between outside of awards season, are incredibly vital now in the political climate we're currently living in -- where whole religions and ethnic populations are getting painted with a broader brush than they have been in decades -- nuance and complexity is desperately needed and edifying for audiences who may have been exposed to just one, flawed and simplistic point of view.