Review: Things We Lost in the Fire

After the unexpected death of her husband, a woman and her kids try to put the pieces of their life back together and get past this terrible tragedy. During this process, she decides to invite her late husband’s long time best friend, who is a recovering heroin addict to stay with her and the kids. Sadness ensues.

This is one of those movies where the trailer doesn’t do it any justice. It appears to be this simple film dealing with death and people trying to move on. It went much deeper with the characters. Despite the slow pace and the non-linear storyline, the characters completely immerse you into the story and take you on the emotional roller coaster.

Halle Berry plays the widow trying to move on with her life. This was probably one her best roles she’s played since MONSTER’S BALL. She really conveyed this raw intensity that was emotional. I salute her for trying something different. What really sucked, was even though, we get this amazing bikini shot of her getting out of a pool, I just couldn’t appreciate the scene the way I would have liked just because of the storyline.

Del-Toro plays the dead husbands recovering addict friend. WOW! Just give him the Oscar now. He did an incredible performance that will be remembered for a long time. You really believed that this guy wanted to get his life back in order. One minute you’re intrigued by the guy, the next minute you’re happy for him and then you’re pissed at him. Amazing! The detox scene was intense! This was probably his finest role to date.

As I mentioned before the whole pacing is very slow and you were never really sure where the story was going. You know the husbands dead and the wife is trying to connect or heal or whatever with her husband through his loser best friend…so now what? Thank God, the acting was top caliber, cause I don’t know if I would have sat through this. I guess we can thank the director Susanne Bier, who actually did a good job visually with the characters. I totally digged her extreme close-ups and dramatic lighting on the characters faces. It was amazing, as you couldn’t really see any expressions but for some weird reason you can sense the emotion coming from them. At any rate, I liked the technique.

To be honest, this wouldn’t be my first pick of flicks to catch on a Saturday night as it is kind of a bummer. But if you are into the whole character thing and want to witness some darn good acting and see Agent Mulder come out retirement (who was good by the way), this is something to see.

— by Tim
Goernert