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Things We Lost in the Fire
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 30 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 19 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Allan Loeb
Directed by: Susanne Bier
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 19, 2007
DVD: March 4, 2008
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / UK
Summary
RATING: R for drug content and language
Starring Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny, Alison Lohman, Sarah Dubrovsky, and John Carroll Lynch
Audrey Burke's life has been shattered by the sudden death of her husband. In grief, she turns to one of his lifelong friends, Jerry Sunborne, a former lawyer who is on a serious downward spiral. Together they work to repair their lives. (DreamWorks Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
In the end this movie belongs to Del Toro. He imbues Jerry with such life, such ambiguity, such unsentimental complexity and depth that you can’t help but feel you’re watching the most intricately mapped depiction of addiction and strained humanity the film world has ever given us.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Allen Loeb's first produced screenplay is an unvarnished treatment of death and its aftermath that's unusual for a Hollywood film.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Berry gives a riveting performance, but as a deeply decent man trapped in a hell of his own making, Del Toro gives the kind of career performance Berry gave in "Monster's Ball."
Read Full Review >Empire Alan Morrison
The script is structurally similar to "21 Grams," but restrained turns and perceptive direction make this honest rather than manipulative.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The result is a film that's more credible in its building blocks than in its whole.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
Outstanding in support roles are Alison Lohman, playing a friend of Jerry's, and John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who befriends Jerry.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
The film also has an unexpected and rich vein of humor. John Carroll Lynch -- you might know him as Norm Gunderson of "Fargo" -- is a stitch as a neighbor of the Burkes.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie is an engrossing melodrama, and it has its heart in the right place.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The honesty outweighs the hokiness by a fair margin.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
It is a testament to how well the movie is made that even the most hardened viewer might find himself tearing up at moments -- and you won't have to hate yourself in the morning.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The only downside is that Bier's vision of upper-middle-class America does not always seem authentic.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The movie makes some missteps, most of them in pacing and length, and the story veers occasionally into melodrama, but it is saved by the powerful performance of Benicio Del Toro.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Things We Lost in the Fire finds Bier at an interesting juncture, half-Dogmatic, half traditionalist.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Del Toro is the movie's force field. This is a performance you will not forget.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Bier is one of the cinema's most acute observers of intimate relations, her Scandinavian reserve muting the inherent melodrama of her material, and she draws piercing, modestly scaled performances from Duchovny, Del Toro, Alison Lohman, and John Carroll Lynch.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Well-acted yet strangely inert, Fire explores the messy human emotions of grief, but it'd be a lot more resonant if the guy everyone's mourning weren't so fatally perfect, so unforgivably superhuman.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Apart from the mobile camera and a moderately challenging time-jumping script, this is weepy women's cable-television fare of the tears-and-cuddles variety.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Susanne Bier is a bomb thrower. The explosives in the films by the Danish director are emotional and provoke torrents of tears, richly earned.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Were there such a thing as a low-carb melodrama, Things We Lost in the Fire would be it - all the tears, half the guilt.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Things are sporadically troublesome about the film. The story goes in and out of being self-consciously earnest and ponderous, a situation that numerous tight close-ups of people's eyes does nothing to help.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Del Toro is a fearless actor, and his Jerry, a heroin addict lurching toward redemption, is the heart and soul, as well as the haunted, rubbery visage, of a story of grief and loss that would be fairly lifeless without him.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A live-wire performance by Benicio Del Toro sparks an otherwise morose study of loss, addiction and catharsis.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
No matter what panache Bier adds, Things We Lost is still a TV-scaled tear-duct drama about a beautiful woman who pushes past sadness in her House & Garden home.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Julia Wallace
Benicio del Toro’s a squinty-eyed genius, and the only reason this film is halfway worth seeing.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
An unstable mix of a tearjerker, junkie-recovery story and odd-couple pairing. The film marks the American debut of Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, whose European films show a strong affinity for stories of human frailties and of families unraveling.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This movie asks us to "accept the good" in life - not a bad message. But to overpraise Things We Lost in the Fire would be to accept the mediocre.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Although neither Ms. Berry nor Mr. Del Toro can be faulted in their scenery-chewing moments, these star turns make you uncomfortably aware that they are Oscar-conscious auditions for the Big Prize. Their naked ambition subtly contaminates a movie that, despite its fine acting, has the emotional impact of a general anesthetic.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Made to win awards, and I'm here to present it with one: the Cliché of the Year honors, otherwise known as the Hackney.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Del Toro will probably get an Oscar nod for his Jerry, because the film is so full of Oscar moments, including a cold-turkey detox bit. He rumbles and shivers and screeches and bangs his head on the wall and takes a shower in his clothes. I never believed a second of it.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 19 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Eldon gave it an8:
What a powerful, beautiful movie!
Erica gave it a9:
Slow...but overall good...great acting on the main characters' part.
Rich R. gave it an8:
This movie would have been, should have been great because of Benecio, certainly one of the best American actors out there, if not THE best. For me, he is the next Jack, not afraid to play an ugly guy, able to let his natural charisma shine thru in whatever character he is playing. The problem, or course, is Halle Berry, who can't act. Her timing, her phrasing, her complete inability to convey any emotion whatsoever, regardless of the script, just murders this movie. Yeah, she's sexy for about five minutes, and so what? But Benecio gives it his all, like he always does; his British equivalent is Paddy Considine.
Jay H. gave it a6:
6.5/10. The performances are top notch, especially Benicio Del Toro, Halle Berry overacts a bit though . The story develops very nicely and draws you into the characters. Believably done, good pace to the film. It can be a bit depressing, but that is expected.
Tony B. gave it a7:
This is a fine adult film unusual in that each of its characters is a decent human being trying to do his or her best in a difficult world. The leads are excellent and the supporting cast is just as good. A brisker pace and less pretentious cinematography would have helped.
Richard V. gave it a9:
Although flawed, ultimately a real and moving motion picture that blurs the distinction between art and commercial films. Del Toro is such an incredible actor. And Barry matches him scene for scene. I won't forget it for a long time. More films like this, please.
Khalid A. gave it a10:
This movie ia a raw emotional masterpiece. What it presents is a unflinching, disarmingly honest and authentic portrait of loss, addiction, pain, redemption, and recovery. The performances are simply Sublime. Benicio triumphs as a dark, disturbed and almost irreversibly broken addict that is at the same time charming, witty, caring and heart-warmingly idiosyncratic. Now Halle Berry is just SUPERB in this movie! Her performance is so raw, unvarnished and searingly honest that it gives you chills. She perfectly embodies a character that in the face of her loss, is realistically complex. She is vulnerable yet icy and prickly, she is needy yet she perfectly portrays her character with justified and realistic ANGER and resentment. And the scenes of face-off between the 2 characters they play are so enthralling and so intense, you can hardly breathe.This is a rare movie, one that really touches you so deeply, that for a while after viewing it you almost cant bring yourself to even move.
