"JESUS, I think I need a comedy," exclaimed super-serious Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly.

The star of new movie drama House of Sand and Fog, which opens on Friday after playing, has vaulted onto Hollywood's A-list of leading ladies in recent years for a series of films exploring dark themes.

Connelly, 33, has played the colleague of a doomed scientist (Hulk), wife of a schizophrenic math genius (Beautiful Mind), mistress to a tortured painter (Pollock) and doomed lover of a politician (Waking the Dead).

Things don't get much brighter in Sand and Fog with her role as Kathy Nicolo, a recovering alcoholic whose home is repossessed by the county for back taxes.

Connelly said she has had enough of tragic heroines, but comedic roles just do not come her way. "It's not like, you know, the hot new comedy comes around and they think of Jennifer Connelly," she joked.

The movie, based on a best-selling novel by Andres Dubus, revolves around two people struggling against each other to realize one of the great American dreams --- owning a home.

But the seaside bungalow in northern California is more than just a house. For Connelly's Nicolo, it represents safety and security as she deals with depression and alcoholism.

The house, which her father left her, offers her a shred of dignity, and when the local government auctions it off because she failed to pay a tax bill, she fights to get it back.

Ben Kingsley portrays Massoud Amir Behrani, an Iranian and former colonel in that country's air force who fled to the United States when his government was overthrown.

To maintain an appearance of wealth and influence in his community of Iranian expatriates, he works two low-paying jobs to afford a high-rise apartment and proper education and lifestyle for his wife and kids.

Behrani has saved money diligently and when Nicolo's house goes up for sale, he buys it fast and determines he will fix it up then sell it at a profit to restore his own dignity.

Behrani's purchase and Nicolo's inability to reverse it legally sets in motion a chain of events that lead both on a downward spiral of manipulation and deception as they try to outwit each other and the government.

Connelly calls the movie "largely about intolerance," and not just ethnic prejudice. Nicolo also encounters resistance to her pleas for help, given her state as penniless and homeless.

If Sand and Fog scores as well with Oscar voters as it has with early audiences, she may be able to have another big moment.

Editor: Wings