Ben Kingsley's Character is just nuts

This film is about 2 characters who desperately need this house for one specific reason: to keep up appearances.

Kathy needs the house in order to keep her family convinced that she's clean, sober and has her life together. If her family finds out she doesn't have the house anymore (and is too lazy to even open her mail), they'll stop sending her allowance money.

The Colonel needs the house in order to bring honor to his daughter; she has just gotten married and the Colonel wants his in-laws to be convinced that the marriage is dignified. Buying the house puts on the illusion that he is a rich man, when in reality he is working odd jobs.

The colonel was wealthy in Iran, but when they moved to the US after a change in government over there, he was just pretending to be wealthy. Like his family spent money and acted like they still were but he was working these blue collar jobs just to stay afloat until his daughter was married because if the rest ex-pat Iranian society knew they weren't rich, she wouldn't have been able to marry well. So the house was kind of a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel for him. Flip this house, do it again, etc, until he's back on top. And when she wanted her house back, he saw everything crashing back down.

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what are on earth? did you even watch the movie? how was the colonel crazy? he's got a huge burden on his shoulders to keep up appearances for his family. also they show you how much money he had left. it was around 50k. he was doing the accounting at the gas station. he subtracted the snickers bar from it. hotel rent was 3k a month. they probably had around 500k or something when they left iran. they spent 140k on the hotel and he said he spent most of it to keep up appearances for his daughter's marriage.