Things We Lost in the Fire

A widow (Halle Berry) takes in the best friend (Benicio Del Toro) of her murdered husband (David Duchovny in flashbacks), but she can’t accept the fact that her husband is dead while the friend, a recovering junkie and all-around screw-up, is still alive. Danish director Susanne Bier (After the Wedding) brings her customary unblinking intimacy to her first American production, drawing raw and anguished performances from her two stars—especially Del Toro, who seems utterly devoid of an actor’s vanity. Allan Loeb’s script is hampered by the fact that Berry’s character is a cold-hearted shrew (even in the flashbacks, when she was supposedly happy); when she tells Del Toro that he should have been the one who died, it’s hard not to think that everyone would be happier if she had taken that fateful bullet.