Things We Lost in the Fire (film)

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Things We Lost In The Fire
Promotional film poster
Directed by	Susanne Bier
Produced by	Sam Mendes
Written by	Allan Loeb
Starring	Halle Berry Benicio del Toro David Duchovny
Distributed by	DreamWorks
Release date(s)	October 19, 2007,(USA) January 4, 2008,(UK)
Country	United States
Language	English
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Things We Lost In The Fire is a 2007 drama film directed by Susanne Bier and written by Allan Loeb.

The film was released in the United States and Canada on October 19, 2007 and in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2008.^[1]

The film has many extreme close-ups, and jumps back and forth in time several times.

1 Plot
2 Box office performance
3 Critical reception
- 3.1 Criticism
4 Trivia
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot

Audrey Burke (Halle Berry) and her warm and loving husband Brian (David Duchovny) have been married 11 years; they have a 10-year old girl Harper (Alexis Llewellyn) and 6-year old boy Dory (Micah Berry). Jerry Sunborne (Benicio del Toro) is a drug addict who has been Brian’s close friend since childhood.

Audrey gets bad news delivered to her door by the local police: Brian has been killed in an attempt to defend a woman when her husband was violent to her. On the day of the funeral Audrey realizes that she has forgotten to inform Jerry. Her brother Neal (Omar Benson Miller) drives to Jerry, tells him about the death, and takes him to the funeral.

Audrey invites Jerry to move into the room adjacent to their garage, which he does. It is a daily battle for him to stay off drugs, but Jerry and the children are fond of each other. Although Audrey and Jerry are not lovers, Audrey invites Jerry into her bed when she cannot sleep: she asks him to gently pull her ear as Brian used to do, as this helps her fall asleep; Jerry complies. Their bond is fragile. For example, Audrey is upset that Jerry succeeds in convincing Dory to overcome his fear of swimming underwater. Also, when Harper skips school on consecutive days, Jerry knows she attends a yearly film festival, a secret Brian had shared with Jerry but not with Audrey. Upset, she sends him away. Angered and hurt, he is about to steal silverware (although Audrey's suspicion in the past that he had stolen money was unjustified, it later returned), but one of the children convinces him not to. He does however start using drugs again. Audrey and Neal help him by paying for his drug treatment at a clinic. Harper is upset that Jerry, whom she sees as her new father, is leaving them. First she does not even want to say goodbye, but comes running after the car at last.

[edit] Box office performance

The film was released October 19, 2007 in 1,142 theaters in the United States and Canada and grossed $1.5 million its opening weekend, ranking #15 at the box office.^[2] As of 11/18/07, it has grossed $3,287,315.

[edit] Critical reception

Critics gave the film generally favorable reviews. As of January 29, 2008 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 64% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 108 reviews.^[3] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.^[4]

Josh Rosenblatt of The Austin Chronicle gave the film 4 stars and said the film is "an impeccably constructed and perfectly paced drama of domestic and internal volatility." Rosenblatt wrote "Berry is brilliant here, as good as she’s ever been" and said of Benicio del Toro's performance, "with Things We Lost in the Fire, he's managed to top even himself." Rosenblatt said "this movie belongs to Del Toro. He imbues Jerry with such life, such ambiguity, such unsentimental complexity and depth that you can't help but feel you're watching the most intricately mapped depiction of addiction and strained humanity the film world has ever given us."^[5] TV Guide critic Ken Fox gave the film 3 1/2 stars and said the cast "helps elevate movie-of-the-week subject matter into a heart-felt meditation on recovery and loss." Fox wrote "Del Toro and Berry both turn in the kind of performances that win Oscars, or at least Oscar nominations." Fox said "Allen Loeb's first produced screenplay is an unvarnished treatment of death and its aftermath that's unusual for a Hollywood film" and also said "Bier, a veteran of the Danish Dogme95 collective that demanded raw authenticity over artificial gloss, brings an honest, distinctly European feel to the melodrama."^[6] Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News gave the film 3 1/2 stars and called it "an award contender...in several positions." Mathews said it is "beautifully written" by Allan Loeb and "acted with heartbreaking efficiency by Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro." Mathews said "Berry gives a riveting performance, but as a deeply decent man trapped in a hell of his own making, Del Toro gives the kind of career performance Berry gave in Monster's Ball."^[7]

Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and said del Toro is "astoundingly good", saying "Just watching Del Toro's eyes provides an emotional fire Allan Loeb's script can't hope to match." Travers said "Berry excels as a woman impatient to see Jerry "accept the good." But Del Toro is the movie's force field. This is a performance you will not forget."^[8] Prairie Miller of the Long Island Press gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and said the film "comes with the first Oscar worthy performance this year, courtesy of Del Toro as a humble, sensitive and self-effacing man struggling to kick his habit, though his thinly sketched character cries out for a solid back story..." Miller said the film "handles an awful lot of situations with uncommon subtlety, grace and affection for its characters" and Halle Berry "manages to sustain sympathy for her victimized but unpleasant character". Miller wrote that Susanne Bier "skillfully crosses cultural barriers" and "excels as a director in surmounting communication barriers."^[9] Los Angeles Daily News critic Glenn Whipp said the film "will probably be most American moviegoers' introduction to the Dogma-flavored direction of Susanne Bier" and said "Newcomers probably won't be as irritated by Bier's herky-jerky, hand-held camerawork, desaturated colors and odd obsession with random close-ups, especially of characters' eyes...For the rest of us, Bier's directorial tics are beginning to wear thin..." Whipp said "the story's inherent melodrama is a natural for Bier" and said "there's an emotional truth at the center of the movie, and that honesty is heightened every time Del Toro is on the screen." Whipp wrote that Benicio del Toro "shows how one great actor can elevate and even save a movie from itself", calling him "absolutely amazing" and saying "Del Toro plays Jerry with a quicksilver weightlessness that constantly produces unexpected moments, gestures, sparks. You can't take your eyes off him."^[10]

Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and said "The movie makes some missteps, most of them in pacing and length, and the story veers occasionally into melodrama, but it is saved by the powerful performance of Benicio Del Toro", calling him "hypnotically watchable." Puig said "Del Toro has not had such a multifaceted and challenging role since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Berry's raw portrayal recalls her Oscar-winning role in Monster's Ball." Puig called the film "slow-moving and somber" and "a nakedly honest, often gut-wrenching look at the emptiness of grief and the slow process of recovery", but said the film "does not approach the subtle poignancy" of Susanne Bier's last film After the Wedding.^[11] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote "Flawed as it is, the movie as a whole is a guilty pleasure." Morgenstern said "Del Toro is a fearless actor" and said the film "would be fairly lifeless without him." Morgenstern wrote "Berry is skillful and affecting, occasionally ferocious, and subtle enough for two, in what is essentially a two-character drama." Morgenstern mentioned his previous praise for Susanne Bier's films Open Hearts, Brothers and After the Wedding and said "Her work in all three was spontaneous and intimate, with a camera style notable for its fluid, searching motion. She brings some of the same techniques to this, her American debut, and achieves a similar intimacy at several lovely moments..." Morgenstern wrote "Ms. Bier's searching camera (the cinematographer was Tom Stern) is a problematic fit with this melodramatic material, which doesn't need to be searched for..." Morgenstern also said "Del Toro proves that bigger and much bolder can be better than tasteful restraint" and said "you can't take your eyes off him. Here's a style of acting so old that it's new."^[12]

[edit] Criticism

Several critics felt that the film was manipulative. Stephen Holden of The New York Times said the film "is the kind of awards-seeking Hollywood movie that bends over backward to prove that serious American movies can hold their own with the best films from overseas. They don’t, of course, except in very rare instances." He said the script by Allan Loeb is a "soft, fuzzy, formulaic story of pain and “healing”", saying "Healing, like “closure,” is a concept that when applied to the marketing of popular culture instantly signals emotional manipulation and bad faith." Holden said "all signs point to a meticulous smoothing out of the story to make the movie adhere to someone’s misbegotten notion of an upscale art film with commercial appeal" and said the film "feels disconnected from the real world." Holden wrote "It is a sign of this movie’s ambitions that DreamWorks went abroad to recruit Susanne Bier...in hopes that she would stamp it with the imprimatur of “art.”" Holden said the notion of David Duchovny and Halle Berry "playing a happily married couple defies credibility", saying "What you see is two stars without chemistry gamely going through the motions." Holden said Berry and del Toro each "has a melodramatic set piece. Ms. Berry essentially reprises the kind of hysterical meltdown she performed in Monster's Ball, which won her an Oscar..." and Jerry "kicks drugs in a groaning and sweating ordeal as flashy as Frank Sinatra’s cold-turkey withdrawal in The Man With the Golden Arm." Holden wrote "Although neither Ms. Berry nor Mr. Del Toro can be faulted in their scenery-chewing moments, these star turns make you uncomfortably aware that they are Oscar-conscious auditions for the Big Prize. Their naked ambition subtly contaminates a movie that, despite its fine acting, has the emotional impact of a general anesthetic."^[13] Kyle Smith of the New York Post gave the film 1 1/2 stars out of 4 and said the film "was made to win awards, and I'm here to present it with one: the Cliché of the Year honors, otherwise known as the Hackney. This movie is the most irritating example yet of how both film and TV have taken to shooting even the phoniest, soapiest stories with that drunken, shaky, ultra- close-up camerawork that says, "Hey, look at us! We're being all documentaryish!"" Smith said how the film jumps around in time is another cliché, mentioning the film Babel. Smith wrote that after a certain point in the film, "nothing happens except lots of Oscar-clip acting exercises and forehead-slappingly awful dialogue", saying "the reverberating banalities aren't as bad as the attempted profundities..."^[14]

Bill Gibron of PopMatters rated the film a 4 out of 10 and said the film "is Lifetime lite cinema masquerading as actual A-list excellence." Gibron said "To say it wastes the talents of its Academy acknowledged cast would be tantamount to arguing that the film had some purpose other than to showcase such industry rewarded chops. When David Duchovny, whose name barely warrants a below the title credit, does the best acting job in the entire film, you know you’re in for some rough motion picture piggybacking." Gibron said "Add to that Bier’s unexplainable obsession with eyes...and the way too wise wee ones, and you’ve got a film that double dares you to dismiss it." Gibron said we get "one of those classic clichéd moments where human grief is manifested in a nonstop five minute “look at me nominating committee” banshee wail." Gibron said the film has "unnatural responses, unrealistic tangents, and no real means of identifying with what’s going on." Gibron said "Part of the problem is Berry" and said "There are two scenes in particular that destroy every ounce of Audrey’s credibility." Gibron said del Toro "isn’t much better", saying "his Jerry is even more insular than Audrey." Gibron said no one stands out from the rest of the cast and "Bier fails to properly utilize her supporting players at every turn." Gibron said "While Loeb is to blame for writing such surface situations...Bier could have made this work" by leaving out the "timeline leaping narrative structure with its foolish level of flashbacks." Gibron called the film "a tired, teeth gnashing exercise in emotional extremes" and concluded "Too bad this script didn’t get lost in the aforementioned blaze. Starting over from scratch may have been the only chance to salvage this hankie hackwork."^[15] Melissa Anderson of Time Out New York gave the film 2 stars out of 6 and said "Emotionally fraudulent was the phrase that kept rattling around in my head as I watched the latest chapter in the Interminable American Narrative of Forgiving, Redemption and Understanding." Anderson said the film "is the exquisite corpse of the Serenity Prayer and the texts of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross" (a reference to the five stages of grief). Anderson wrote "Everybody hurts. But why must pain be dramatized the same way over and over again?" Anderson said "...at the film’s end, you’ll realize just how much the hokum of pop psychology has conquered mainstream American movies."^[16] Another critic asserted that the movie appears as Halle Berry's attempt to re-enact her Oscar-winning role in Monster's Ball. The similar plot elements are undeniable, the widowed mother finds comfort from an unlikely source - the drug-addicted best friend of her late husband. In fact, it appears that this movie is like Monster's Ball with the love scene edited out, almost as if it were an attempt to appease the criticism of those who alleged that this scene made Berry's performance reinforce many stereotypes of black women and show Berry to be worthy of her Oscar.^{[citation needed]}