Things We Lost in the Fire
does Halle Berry bring her A-game to this grown-up flick?
2007-10-19
By Sergio Mims

CAST:
Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny, Alison Lohman, John Carroll Lynch, Micah Berry, Alexis Llewellyn
WRITTEN BY:
Allan Loeb
DIRECTED BY:
Susanne Bier
RATED R
***1/2

Halle Berry, when she’s lucky enough to get the right script and the right director, is a surprisingly
effective and terrific actress. Like most of today’s A-list actors and actresses, Berry has become a major A-list movie star starring in mainly mediocre, instantly forgettable films like Catwoman and Perfect Stranger.

But, Berry has claimed redemption with a  believable performance in director Susanne Bier’s excellent new film Things We Lost in the Fire. The first American English language film by the acclaimed Danish director (After The Wedding, Brothers), Fire is a quiet, carefully modulated bit of emotion and intensity which has a genuine foreign film sensibility. Bier’s subdued directing style uses seemingly disparate close ups of faces, kitchen sinks and unblinking eyes, which brings an immediacy and grainy realism to what, in another director’s hands, would have been a maudlin, sappy, and histrionic melodrama too frequently passed off today as serious cinema. In addition, Bier’s use of a non-linear narrative structure for half the film  fractures the story’s flow and intentionally throws the viewer off balance.

In the film, Berry plays the loving mother of two kids (Llewellyn and Micah Berry) and the wife of a very successful real estate developer (Duchovny). Her wonderful life caves suddenly caves in when her husband is killed in a random act of violence. Lost, she reaches out to her husband’s childhood friend (Del Toro)  a former lawyer who has now reduced himself to a heroin addict living in a ratty transient hotel barely managing to stay clean. Though she has been distrustful of Del Toro throughout her marriage, Berry feels the need to continue her husband’s good deeds and unwavering loyalty towards Del Toro. Seeing his potential, she invites him to stay at her guest house until he can get back on his feet. Of course, nothing is that simple and conflicts and tensions soon rise to the surface as the two of them struggle to come to terms with the sudden loss of a loved one.

Del Toro, still one of the most gifted, charismatic and underrated actors working today, is incredible as the troubled friend. Handed some of the film’s most dramatic moments, he infuses each with a delicate balance of searing emotion with flashes of genuine wit and charm. But it’s Berry who pulls off handily a deceptively complex character who is alternately needy and desperate, jealous and vulnerable, lost and at times coldly manipulative. With the exception of her character’s obligatory emotional breakdown (which not only rings false for the character, but is actually unnecessary for the film) Berry is truly amazing in the role. You can almost see her wanting to prove her naysayers wrong and show that her Oscar win wasn’t a fluke. She delivers the goods and is a sure bet for another Oscar nomination next year.

Things We Lost in the Fire is a superb drama that is another excellent addition to an already great fall film season. Maybe there’s hope for Hollywood yet.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to ebonyjet.com