Things We Lost In The Fire Blu-Ray
Halle Berry and Benico Del Toro star in this moving story about how the death of one man unites and forces the two people that are the most important in his life to accept each other for who they are.
Film making 17/25
Cinematography 17/25
Audio 18/25
Bonus Features 8/25
Total 60/100
Audrey Burke played by Halle Berry lives the life everyone dreams of; a nice quiet family home, a successful husband who cares and not a problem in the world except one. Brian Burke, played by David Duchovny, insists on routinely seeing his high school friend who is now a heroin addict to help him out.
Audrey hates when Brian goes to see Jerry Sunborne, Played by Benico Del Toro, because she is afraid of what could happen to him in the crime ridden places Jerry hangs out. Fate has a strange twist in store for them all when Brian is killed when he goes to the grocery store and ends up trying to defend a woman who is being beaten by her husband.
Audrey tries to hold herself together but cannot as she is tragically left alone to take care of her two children, Harper and Dory. When Audrey realizes the day of the funeral that Jerry knows nothing of Brian’s death she sends her brother to inform Jerry and bring him to the funeral.
During the gathering at her home after the burial Audrey invites Jerry to stay in the room next to their garage and help Jerry while he recovers from his addiction. After he refuses she tracks him down and insists that Jerry would be helping her out as they have all kinds of work to do around the house and no one to do it.
Jerry reluctantly agrees and moves in with his few possessions and is working part time at an addiction counseling center and fixing up some things around Audrey’s home. Jerry becomes fast friends with Harper and Dory who look up to him as a father figure with Harper really getting attached after the loss of her father.
Jerry ends up relapsing and Audrey rushes out to find him and bring him back to clean him up with the help of another addict who has been sober for years. Once he gets clean he decides to leave and Audrey asks him to attend a rehab clinic so he can have a fresh start and she will pay for the stay.
Jerry accepts as long as he can pay her back when he gets out and finds a job and Audrey agrees, the end of the film has Jerry driving off with a tearful goodbye from all. We last see him talking about a dream but it is just the fears of an addict who realizes he can never do drugs again without them taking over his life.
Things We Lost In The Fire is a pretty good movie about hope and the struggles everyone faces in life like loss of a loved one or addiction. A few scenes in the film I thought were really out of place like the one where Audrey cannot fall asleep because she is so used to Brian stroking her earlobe when they go to bed.
She finally has Jerry come to her bed and stroke her ear till she falls asleep but Jerry is quite uncomfortable with the situation. It’s not a love scene, there are none in the film, but just one of those awkward moments but it is taken to an extreme that I don’t think would really happen.
I kind of skipped over a few details of the film, can’t cover everything, but one that I feel needs mentioning is the title. The title comes from the story Audrey tells Jerry about a small fire they had in their garage during some remodeling and how they lost stuff like pictures and mementos.
The film does a great job of describing interpersonal relationships and how some people have no problems accepting others even with large problems like addiction. Things We Lost In The Fire is worth watching at least once but kind of missed the great or excellent movie status.
The Blu-ray edition has a discussion from producer, director and cast about the film as well as some deleted scenes and trailers but that is all for extras. The Blu-ray edition does have the film in high definition and the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound with several language and subtitle choices.
Things We Lost In The Fire is a good film and well worth seeing but I feel you may want to rent this one as opposed to getting the Blu-ray edition.