My brother-in-law died this year. His name was David, and he wasn't far in age from David Duchovny, whose character Brian is killed in Things We Lost in the Fire. Like Brian in the film, David's death was both unexpected and sudden—there was no chance for goodbyes. Brian's wife Audrey is played by Halle Berry, who is close in age to my wife Suzanne, David's younger sister—who happens to have the same name as the film's director, Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier.

I can't really imagine what it would have been like to watch Things We Lost in the Fire last year, or the year before. It's one thing to bury a grandparent or even a parent. An immediate family member at one's own stage in life—one young to die—is very different.

Halle Berry as Audrey Burke, comforting her daughter (played by Alexis Llewellyn)

Halle Berry as Audrey Burke, comforting her daughter (played by Alexis Llewellyn)

Death puts life in perspective. Brian's death is unrelated to the titular fire; the fire occurs years before the events depicted in the film. The point of the title is that the things that were lost in the fire—which to Audrey seemed at the time so important—were just things. "We still have each other," she remembers Brian reminding her even then (I keep starting to type David). Yes, they did, until they didn't. It's strange how that happens.

Death is not a single traumatic event. Like a wedding, it is a thousand mundane tasks. There are distant family members, long-neglected friends, acquaintances and business partners to be notified; arrangements to be made, flowers to be ordered, a large gathering to be prepared for; and always all the minutiae of ordinary life to be attended to.

E-mail and voicemail continues to trickle in from people who haven't heard, like an old college buddy of Brian's who writes on the day of the funeral to chat about the Sonics' new power forward. "What did he think of him?" Audrey asks her brother Neal (Omar Benson Miller), who sits at Brian's computer. Good rebounder, Neal replies slowly, somewhat abashed by the triviality of the subject. Outside jump shot needed work. "Well then, write that," Audrey decides.

Even when you think everyone has been told, there's always someone else. Just before the funeral Audrey remembers someone who must be notified right away—someone with no phone, who must be told in person, and if he wishes, to be brought to the funeral.

David Duchovny as Brian, Audrey's now-deceased husband

David Duchovny as Brian, Audrey's now-deceased husband

This would be Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), Brian's friend since second grade. In the film's somewhat nonlinear storytelling, we meet Jerry at the post-funeral gathering first, and only later see him first receiving the news of Brian's death. Jerry drags nervously on a cigarette, and has another tucked behind his ear like a pencil. Only later is it clear the extent to which the cigarettes are less a vice than a lifeline.

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"I hated you for so many years," Audrey confesses to Jerry. "Now it seems so silly."

The missing bit of information that connects all these dots is that Jerry, a one-time lawyer, is a heroin addict living on skid row. For years, Brian was Jerry's only connection to his former life. To Audrey's chagrin, Brian makes regular visits to Jerry's skid row apartment, on one occasion tearing himself away from a very amorous moment with his wife to make a birthday visit to Jerry—which, when your wife looks like Halle Berry, says a lot about you as a friend.

Other than Brian, Jerry doesn't want to see anyone until he's clean—a goal to which he vaguely aspires, though there is currently no action in that direction, no progress toward that goal. Someday, perhaps, he will be ready. But life doesn't always wait for you to decide to be ready. One day there is a knock at the door, and there is Audrey's brother Neal telling Jerry that Brian is dead. He has to say it a number of times; people don't always take in something of that magnitude when you say it once. Ready or not, Jerry must decide then and there which way to go.

For Audrey, Jerry is both a tenuous link to her missing husband and also the one wall between them. C. S. Lewis once noted that when a friend died, Lewis himself lost not only the friend but also something in other mutual friends that only the lost friend brought out. By reaching out to Jerry, Audrey seeks to connect with a part of her husband that she never entirely understood and was never reconciled to.

Benicio Del Toro as Jerry Sunborne, sharing a moment with Audrey's son Dory (Micah Berry)

Benicio Del Toro as Jerry Sunborne, sharing a moment with Audrey's son Dory (Micah Berry)

At the same time, Audrey can't figure out whether she wants to be David for Jerry, or Jerry to be David for her. Certainly having Jerry around is good for the kids, six-year-old Dory (Micah Berry) and nine-year-old Harper (Alexis Llewellyn), whom Jerry knows by osmosis even before they meet. To the children as well as to Audrey, Jerry represents that part of Brian which he knew; but then comes a moment when Jerry fleetingly outdoes the departed, which is more than Audrey can bear.

The emotional territory is similar to Bier's Danish-language film Brothers, in which a responsible family man is struck down, leaving a prodigal brother to do his best to step up to the plate and try to offer the hurting family whatever consolation and support he can. In both films, the black-sheep character is at least partly a surrogate for the fallen man, and the issue of emotional entanglements between the wife and the other man is at least raised, though fortunately Bier seems to be more interested in tense emotional ambiguities than in simplistic payoffs.

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Both films also subject a male protagonist to a grueling trial by fire and failure before ultimately ending on a note of hope and redemption. The theme of decency, of doing the right thing, figures prominently in both films.

Jerry helps Audrey stay 'connected' to Brian's past

Jerry helps Audrey stay 'connected' to Brian's past

Things We Lost lacks some of the nuance of Brothers. Where the earlier film substantially cross-examined the family man's uprightness, essentially reversing the brothers' roles, in Things We Lost Brian is nearly flawless—a devoted husband and father, a loyal friend, an outstanding provider, even dying a hero's death.

The dialogue is sometimes too explicit and on the nose, not trusting viewers to make connections on their own. In the opening lines, Brian uses the word "fluorescent," which he explains to his six-year-old son Dory means "lit from within." Not content with that, the screenplay has Dory ask brightly, "Am I fluorescent?" so that his daddy can assure him that, yes, he is.

Other details and moments are sharply observed: Dory's nightmares, in which Daddy is the monster; Jerry late at night rifling through his meager belongings hoping against hope for a forgotten stash; a hilariously blunt exchange between Jerry and a neighbor over personal issues and furniture. Though not always faithful in small things, Things We Lost is faithful in much. The individual moments are sometimes off, but the large emotional resonances are right.

While there's not a bad performance in the film, the clear standout is Del Toro, who transcends the tics and mannerisms of a junkie to play a fully felt character with a problem rather than simply playing the problem. Berry persuasively reconciles her character's conflicting moods and reactions; Alison Lohman makes an impression in a supporting role as a member of Jerry's NA group. Bier's directorial style, which includes handheld cameras and intimate closeups sometimes framing a single eye, draws us into a film that is more about how grief, loss and relationships feel than what happens next.

Talk About It

Discussion starters
  1. Have you lost anyone close to you? Did this have any long-term effects on your relationships with other survivors? Did it draw people closer together? Push them further apart? Did both happen? What other long-term consequences were there?
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  1. Audrey tells Jerry that anyone but Brian would have given up on him long ago, adding that she certainly would. When, if ever, is it okay to give up on someone? If someone is engaged in self-destructive behavior, which do you think is better: to cut them off in a "tough love" way, or to keep up a relationship and open communication in spite of their behavior? Does it depend on circumstances? When can cutting someone off be harsh and unloving? When can keeping up a relationship be a form of enabling?
  2. People often remark on the resilience of children. Have you seen evidence of that in children you know? Have you seen evidence of the contrary? How do children experience loss and grief differently from adults? Do you have memories of trauma or grief from your childhood? How do your memories differ from experiences you have had as an adult?
  3. Despite the rosary that Jerry wears around his neck, Things We Lost is an entirely secular meditation on death and loss. Have experiences of grief and loss made you feel closer to God or further away? Do you think faith makes a difference in how we face the loss of a loved one? What if our loved one doesn't share our faith?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Things We Lost in the Fire is rated R for drug content and language. Jerry engages in long-term drug abuse, living in squalor and harboring vague hopes of being "clean" someday. We also see a recovering addict during a relapse in a state of severe heroin intoxication, and a prolonged sequence depicting slow, painful withdrawal symptoms. The f-word is repeatedly used both sexually and non-sexually, and there is scattered crude language and a whispered misuse of the name of Jesus. Characters semi-facetiously speculate or speak hypothetically about adultery. There is an instance of playful marital eroticism (nothing explicit) and a somewhat charged scene with a man and a woman in bed in which nothing ultimately happens.

What other Christian critics are saying:

Things We Lost in the Fire
Our Rating
3 Stars - Good
Average Rating
 
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Mpaa Rating
R (for drug content and language)
Genre
Directed By
Susanne Bier
Run Time
1 hour 58 minutes
Cast
Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, Alison Lohman
Theatre Release
October 19, 2007 by Paramount
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