Review of Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) by Susan P — 05 Sep 2008

I love Susanne Bier for her perceptive and realistic portrayals of family life. So many movies show us a cinematic convention of a family rather than how real people actually behave. Her films show us a lot of the little mundane details of everyday life--I find that I often get a little shock of recognition that very rarely happens while watching your average Hollywood movie.

She is particularly good with children in her films. Yes, they're generally adorable, but they also really seem like real kids. She is unafraid to show them seeking physical warmth and comfort--much closer to the little animals that they are, rather than miniature adults. They demonstrate vulnerabilities entirely appropriate to their age and maturity level and aren't just smart-asses (another common Hollywood pitfall).

TWLITF, like her previous movie, After the Wedding, fits comfortably into the category of family melodrama (this one features more family and less melodrama), but Bier's approach is never run-of-the-mill. You find yourself *really* watching it, not just coasting. The entire cast is strong--especially Benicio Del Toro. In one of his first scenes, he gives a cigarette to someone who asks him for one. They then throw away the cigarette half-smoked. Quickly, unobtrusively, he bends down, pinches it out, and puts it back in his pocket. That single elegant gesture does more to advance his character than a page of explanatory dialogue in most movies. It is a textbook example of good story-telling: ''Show, don't tell.'.

Bier seems to revel here in the freedom of a non-Dogme movie (for an excellent example of her Dogme work, try to track down Open Hearts, which also features a heartbreakingly realistic portrayal of parents and children in crisis). A particularly nice example is Benicio Del Toro listening to his headphones--something that would have been utterly forbidden under Dogme rules!

I came really close to giving this 4.5 stars. It is maybe just slightly too long, and I didn't feel that Halle Berry's character was quite as well-developed as Benicio Del Toro's. She seems not to have any of her own life outside her husband, house, and children (maybe this is why she is so immediately desperate for the company of another man). Did she not work? Go to school? We hear about the men's outside lives...I felt like I wanted at least a couple lines about her too. There are a couple of cuts that seem a bit jarringly abrupt, and although her extreme closeups are beautiful, they felt possibly a little over-indulged by the end of the movie. I also thought that the film's overall impetus was due more to the power of the acting than to the story. I wasn't looking for car chases...but I think for a 2hr movie, I needed just a little bit something more.

These quibbles keep it closer to a 4 star rating than 4.5, but I would rather watch Bier go for it and not entirely succeed than see yet another slick lazy movie full of tedious stereotypes. Bier describes this movie as 'a love story that can't ever happen'. It may sound frustrating--but it's probably the most satisfying frustration you'll experience all year.