Things We Lost In the Fire – After several flops, it’s good to see Halle Berry back on Oscar-worthy-track in a performance as a widow of two children who hates Jerry (Benicio Del Toro) a junkie, who shows up at her husband (David Duchovny’s) funeral. Her husband has been murdered and she’s rendered frozen and helpless yet able to find a common bond in this man (Del Toro) who inspires her to take one day at a time, while she inspires him to have a reason to live. And so the movie becomes one of mutual dependency – two people who are struggling to be ‘in the now.’ This is Del Toro’s movie, as he delivers a performance better than his Oscar winning “Traffic” – sensitive, funny and unintentionally charming, which might explain why at times the audience can’t gauge when it’s appropriate to laugh or be still. Nevertheless, the movie touches us with a different plot line that ends very realistically yet at the same time fulfills us as an audience. Three tiaras
