It takes a certain skill to increase the tension in a story. The novel “House of Sand and Fog” delicately does this with extreme precision and its perfect pacing. You don’t experience an escalated heartbeat as the story moves forward, but Andre Bubus III’s writing gives you a hint that something catastrophic will happen.

For the movie, while the pacing was fine, I don’t sense the same tension that keeps you on the edge of your seat. With the climaxing events, they don’t seem as earned as in the book. What I mean by that is each scene does not build on one another as well as its textual counterpart.

It’s no surprise that Ben Kingsley received an Oscar nomination for playing Colonel Massoud Behrani, especially with the scene of his reaction to his son Esmail getting shot. I thought Jennifer Connelly as Kathy should have received a nomination as well. However, there were certain scenes in the book that were left out in the movie, which could have helped her case. One scene in the book, for example, is Kathy in a drunken state and unknowingly brandishing a handgun at a gas station attendant. As Kathy is a recovering addict and alcoholic, I would have liked to have seen more of Jennifer Connelly going through her drunken stupor and dealing with the turmoil of her house.

I also thought the interchange between the English and Farsi languages was much smoother in the book. It felt more natural when Massoud and his wife, Nadi, spoke to each other. In the movie, the audience hears English as the primary language, and when they would speak Farsi, it felt more thrown in.

The movie also avoids putting Kathy in jail. The ending of the book, where she is behind bars and signals for a cigarette to another inmate, leaves her fate open-ended, while the movie shows Kathy outside of the home after the murder-suicide of Massoud and Nadi.

I’m not very familiar with Ron Eldard, and while he does a serviceable job as Lester, I felt he wasn’t the best for for the role. This role had more potential, and a better actor would have earned himself an Oscar nomination, as it was a meaty part.

This was Vadim Perelman’s directorial debut. He does well by following the book and not making dramatic changes, even showcasing the Bay Area setting. There were also memorable scenes, such as with Massoud in his blue military uniform committing suicide with a plastic bag over his head. It was difficult to watch (along with the reaction to his son’s death), and Perelman directs these scenes to make them as uncomfortable and unfortunate as possible.

Still, with those scenes, the movie doesn’t overtake the novel when comparing the two. The novel itself left you wondering what would happen on the next page. I cared more about the characters and wanted to see how their decisions would affect their lives. With the movie, the characters weren’t as fleshed out as I wanted them to be.