The house in question, a modest bungalow within a stone's throw of the Pacific, has been inherited by a subsistence-level housecleaner currently undergoing drug rehab, who gets evicted through a bureaucratic error and her own neglect to open her mail. It is then bought for a song at auction by a former Iranian colonel currently reduced to road repair in Northern California, who is simply looking to make a quick turn-around on the real-estate market after the construction of an ocean-view deck. A sticky situation, for sure, but the best-selling novel (thank you, Oprah) by Andre Dubus III doesn't seem to lend itself to playable scenes, with a meager handful of exceptions: the former occupant's self-injuring attempt to halt construction on the deck, her new boyfriend's attempt to intimidate the present occupant with his police uniform, and the latter's extreme expression of paternal love at the climax. The parallel construction, pingponging between the languorous sensuality of Jennifer Connelly and the rigid asceticism of Ben Kingsley, produces little tension and a bit of parallel corn: simultaneous sex scenes. Ponderously directed by a new name, Vadim Perelman; atmospherically photographed by an old hand, Roger Deakins. With Ron Eldard, Frances Fisher, Kim Dickens. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd