Things We Lost in the Fire

“Things We Lost in the Fire” deals with two heavy topics: overcoming grief over the loss of a husband and overcoming a drug addiction. Audrey (Halle Berry) loses her husband Brian when his Good Samaritan instincts backfire and he’s killed. She resented Brian’s loyalty to his boyhood friend, Jerry (Benicio del Toro), a heroin addict, but in her grief, she latches onto him as a way to keep Brian alive. Audrey’s two children accept Jerry as a surrogate father and this gives him the strength to turn his life around. Paradoxically, it causes Audrey to become angry with Jerry and things fall apart. Berry and del Toro are excellent, especially del Toro, but Danish-born director Susanne Bier has an odd habit of doing too many close ups of their eyes. Sometimes this works as it promotes a sense of intimacy with the characters, but most of the time it’s just annoying. And to put grief and addiction on a collision course means that the journey for the two protagonists is going to be full of anguish….and just as difficult for the audience, perhaps too difficult. (10/21/07)