Berry portrays a grieving widow.
About the movie
Things We Lost in the Fire
Rating: 
Cast:
Alison Lohman; Maggie Ma; David Duchovny; Halle Berry; Paula Newsome; John Carroll Lynch; Robin Weigert; Benicio del Toro; Quinn Lord; Omar Benson Miller
Directed by:
Susanne Bier
On the web:
READER FEEDBACK
FOR ME, THERE'S always been something missing from the Danish "dogme" films, with their muddy, grainy realism and austere vows of technological poverty.
You watch a dogme movie and you think, this film needs something.
Like, for instance, Halle Berry.
She's got the lead in "Things We Lost in the Fire," a film by Danish director Susan Bier. Perhaps you've seen her work? "Det blir I familien"? No? How about "Elsker Dig for Evigt"?
Anyway, "Things" is dogmelike in the darkness and realism of its subject matter — a woman (Berry) loses her husband to a senseless act of violence, then tries to keep herself from going nuts while looking after her now-fatherless kids.
She looks for a sense of purpose, and finds one by taking up her erstwhile husband's quixotic mission to help a childhood friend (Benicio Del Toro) hopelessly lost to drug addiction.
She takes the extraordinary step of inviting the troubled man to live in the garage of her suburban home, provided he makes the attempt to kick his heroin habit.
"Things We Lost in the Fire" merges the familiar genres of grief/recovery and addiction/recovery, but is honest and well-written enough to avoid genre pitfalls. There is never the suggestion that there are pat, easy outcomes to either situation.
The movie is also very easy on the eyes, thanks to Berry and to the obvious fun that Bier has in going a little Hollywood — she has a big, colorful, modern house to play around with, thanks to a storyline that makes Berry's husband an avant-garde architect.
This is also one of Berry's better performances, or maybe it's just that her fervent emoting plays so well against Del Toro's doleful stoicism. Where's he been, anyway?
Del Toro has been virtually AWOL since winning an Oscar for "Traffic," and "Things We Lost in the Fire" reminds us of his mangy, sorrowful charm. He works beautifully with Berry, and has hilarious rapport with John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who finds, in Del Toro's character, a guy with whom he can pierce suburban propriety and be completely honest.
Their friendship shows Bier's gift for nuance, and is one of the movie's satisfying little detours away from the awards-season act-a-thon this might have become. *
Produced by Sam Mendes and Sam Mercer, directed by Susan Bier, written by Alan Loeb, music by Johan Soderqvist, distributed by DreamWorks.
You watch a dogme movie and you think, this film needs something.
Like, for instance, Halle Berry.
She's got the lead in "Things We Lost in the Fire," a film by Danish director Susan Bier. Perhaps you've seen her work? "Det blir I familien"? No? How about "Elsker Dig for Evigt"?
Anyway, "Things" is dogmelike in the darkness and realism of its subject matter — a woman (Berry) loses her husband to a senseless act of violence, then tries to keep herself from going nuts while looking after her now-fatherless kids.
She looks for a sense of purpose, and finds one by taking up her erstwhile husband's quixotic mission to help a childhood friend (Benicio Del Toro) hopelessly lost to drug addiction.
She takes the extraordinary step of inviting the troubled man to live in the garage of her suburban home, provided he makes the attempt to kick his heroin habit.
"Things We Lost in the Fire" merges the familiar genres of grief/recovery and addiction/recovery, but is honest and well-written enough to avoid genre pitfalls. There is never the suggestion that there are pat, easy outcomes to either situation.
The movie is also very easy on the eyes, thanks to Berry and to the obvious fun that Bier has in going a little Hollywood — she has a big, colorful, modern house to play around with, thanks to a storyline that makes Berry's husband an avant-garde architect.
This is also one of Berry's better performances, or maybe it's just that her fervent emoting plays so well against Del Toro's doleful stoicism. Where's he been, anyway?
Del Toro has been virtually AWOL since winning an Oscar for "Traffic," and "Things We Lost in the Fire" reminds us of his mangy, sorrowful charm. He works beautifully with Berry, and has hilarious rapport with John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who finds, in Del Toro's character, a guy with whom he can pierce suburban propriety and be completely honest.
Their friendship shows Bier's gift for nuance, and is one of the movie's satisfying little detours away from the awards-season act-a-thon this might have become. *
Produced by Sam Mendes and Sam Mercer, directed by Susan Bier, written by Alan Loeb, music by Johan Soderqvist, distributed by DreamWorks.
