Things We Lost in the Fire (2007)

Things We Lost in the Fire has Oscar written all over it. It's got Oscar-winning actors (Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro), Oscar-worthy subject matter (drug addiction, coping with tragedy), and the director of an Oscar-nominated film (Susanne Bier, whose After the Wedding was Denmark's foreign film submission in 2006). But it's missing Oscar's key ingredient -- a spark of je ne sais quoi that would bring it all together into something transcendent. Technically, there's nothing one can identify that comes up short in Bier's film, except maybe a histrionic or two by Berry that got away from her. And there's a certain any-port-in-a-storm interest to the plot's central irony, which is that a recovering heroin addict may be the key puzzle piece to putting a family back together after its husband/father dies. But it's not quite enough that del Toro does a good job acting out the shakes of going cold turkey, or that Berry gets down the soul-sucking weariness of extended grief. Part of the problem is the fitful nature of Berry's character as written. We can't expect her to be totally composed after her husband is killed, but neither should it surprise us that her erratic treatment of del Toro's well-intentioned junkie -- come here come here come here, go away go away go away -- ends up knocking him off the wagon. Things We Lost in the Fire is a plenty satisfactory addition to the sizeable group of films where a tragically taken character is mourned over the course of the movie; it just doesn't tell us anything new about that process. There's no reason to excessively criticize it, but excessive praise doesn't feel justified either. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide