Film:  Things We Lost in the Fire
Studio:    DreamWorks Pictures
Director:  Susanne Bier
Principal Actors:  Benicio Del Toro, Halle Berry
Release:  2007; On DVD released March 4, 2008
Film length: 118 minutes
Rating: R for drug content and language

4 Stars

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner

Things We Lost in the Fire is a frank look at drug abuse, rehabilitation, and the person who exists throughout all the processes.  It is also a film of loss and of finding help in some unexpected places.

Audry Burke (Halle Berry, winner of Academy Award for Best Actress for Monster's Ball, 2001) has the perfect life:  Wonderful husband Brian (David Duchovny), wonderful daughter, Harper (Alexis Llewellyn, wonderful son, Dory (Micah Berry).  All wonderful, until Brian goes out one night to pick up ice cream, gets involved in a domestic dispute and ends up shot and killed.  As the police arrive at the family home to break the news, Audrey says, "I've got two kids.  I've got a ten-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy, and they're waiting for their daddy to come home with ice cream."  Berry's soft, quavering voice fully captures the heartbreak of the moment.

In preparing for the funeral, Audrey remembers her husband's friend since childhood, Jerry Sunborne (Benicio Del Toro, winner of Academy Award for Best Actor for Traffic, 2001).  She sends her brother, Neal (Omar Benson Miller) to the nasty part of town to find Jerry, a lawyer turned heroin addict.  Jerry cleans up to go to the funeral, and while there, flashbacks of his memories reveal the friendship between Jerry and Brian worked both ways, never a relationship based on pity as Audrey had often accused.

After the funeral, Audry reaches out to Jerry, offering him the spare room over the garage, and their relationship progresses through a roller coaster of mistrust, interdependence, drug addiction, rehabilitation, relapses, understanding and caring.  Del Toro's performance takes the viewer through the hard realities of drug addiction, always maintaining sympathy for his character and keeping the audience pulling for him through all his trials.

As the grieving wife, Berry's acting sometimes goes over the top, a much too quivering lower lip at times, eyes too dramatically welling up with tears.  But she has some fine moments, particularly when the anger of loss kicks in and she must hit an emotional bottom before beginning to move forward.  As always, Berry is lovely, and there are the obligatory scenes of her in a skimpy bikini, in a skimpy nightgown, in the shower, and in the bathtub.  Unfortunately, it felt these were carefully placed to show as much lovely skin as possible whether or not it advanced the plot.  (Some may not find that to be a bad thing).

The direction became irritating at times, with strange zooming close-ups of one eye, fingernails, Berry's bony toes.  It was unclear what these zoom shots were meant to accomplish, but they demonstrate even the loveliest among us should object to being photographed at certain ultra close angles.

Special features include a discussion of the film with director Susanne Bier, deleted scenes, and trailers.