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In Susanne Bier's awkwardly titled drama, Things We Lost in the Fire, Benicio Del Toro plays a former lawyer who has become a heroin addict.
But this haunting film is not really about addiction, even though it is honest.
It shows the giddy pursuit of the high and the lows the addict is guaranteed.
In the film, David Duchovny plays an enlightened, if impulsive, Good Samaritan who gets murdered for his do-good action.
But Things We Lost is not really about that, either. And Duchovny is seen in flashbacks, mainly through rose-coloured glasses that make him more saintly than real.
In the film, Halle Berry plays the angry, grieving widow of Duchovny. She does so with a fierceness and complexity of character that she has not enjoyed since her Oscar-winning turn in Monster's Ball.
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Finally, Things We Lost really is about that: The grieving process, which can make even a victim seem unsympathetic to outsiders, as it does here.
Beautifully rendered if heartbreakingly sad, this film is an intense experience for audiences who want to explore the darkest corners of everyday life. There are few things darker than a senseless death that spins everything and everyone else out of control.
The story, written in Spartan fashion by Allan Loeb, puts Berry and Del Toro into each other's lives for the first time. They knew all about each other -- because Duchovny's character was Del Toro's roommate at law school -- but had never met. Until Duchovny's funeral.
Because this is Bier -- a formidable Danish director making her American debut after scoring an Oscar nomination for After the Wedding -- there are no cheap theatrics. Nor are there moon-June romantic scenes that would seem fake and turn this into a cliched love story.
Instead, as Del Toro and Berry interact, as the fates of her two achingly lovely children come into play, Things We Lost becomes a powerful story of redemption. And the price that must be paid to get it.
The acting is simply stunning.
Berry is an interesting case because some viewers recoil at her character's mercurial nature, running hot to cold, angry to sad, bitter to bountiful. But, as with the Mads Mikkelson "hero" in After the Wedding, Bier allows her protagonists to be thoroughly flawed humans. They are more interesting, more real. Berry makes choices that almost seem irrational. But she is in shock.
In contrast, Del Toro starts off wasted, and yet still manages to play his character with a wry sense of humour. Despite scenes in which he relapses -- they are harrowing -- he deliberately goes to the light side of a dark man, creating empathy.
As for Bier's direction and the overall tone and look of the film, it works on a subtle plane. Colours are desaturated. The mood is sombre.
Handheld camerawork -- Bier was one of the proponents of the famous Dogme '95 school of filmmaking in Denmark -- brings the audience into intimate moments as if we are spying on real lives. With Bier's extreme and prolonged closeup on faces and body parts, it is unsettling and meant to be.
Simply put, do not go to this film if you are looking for a romantic comedy or a routine drama. Things We Lost in the Fire offers no such escapism. Instead, even in a fiction, it brings us face to face with the demons of life.
(This film is rated 14-A)