Things We Lost in the Fire

Since winning the Oscar for Monster's Ball, it would be fair to say that Halle Berry's roles have ranged from entertaining rubbish (X-Men) to the just plain rubbish (Catwoman, Gothika, Perfect Strangers - anyone?). The fact that she turned up at the Razzies to accept her award for Catwoman, parodying her Oscar acceptance in the process shows that she is only too aware of this. One suspects that she must have been so grateful to have been offered a decent role like the one here.

She plays Audrey, a woman whose husband Brian (David Duchovny) is shot after intervening in an argument. Following the funeral she forms an unlikely friendship with Brian's friend and recovering heroin addict Jerry (Benicio Del Toro). Throw into the mix two children trying to deal with the loss of their father and another ex-addict (Alison Lohman (Big Fish)) who takes a shine to Jerry and you have something that could either end up being relentlessly depressing in an art-house kind of way or fakely uplifting as a Hollywood tear-jerker. Director Susanne Bier (After the Wedding, The Brothers), in her first English language film, manages to more or less successfully tread a line between the two is no small achievement.

She's helped in this by two great performances from Berry and Del Toro - and its a good job they're on top form as the director's penchant for extreme close-ups leaves little room to hide. Bier also plunges the audience straight into the scenes of grief before really introducing Dunchovny's departed character through a series of flashbacks. There's a rawness to some of the most emotional scenes, often presented bare from music of any kind. Where the score does come in, it lends a haunting quality to scenes. And not everything is grim - there's a warmth and surprsising moments of humour here, many provided by John Carroll Lynch's loveable neighbour.

Not everything works so well - the intercutting of the shooting with Berry receiving the news, milk bottle smashing and all, feels very much old-hat, seen-it-all before. And its the wrong kind of movie to have the 10 year old moppet come out with lines like "Do you ever feel like you're living in a movie?". But these are really minor gripes.

Overall - 4/5. Stunning performances and some skillful handling of the details and emotions make this more moving and genuinely heartwarming than the average drama.