Overview: Academy Award winners Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro give two of the years most brilliant performances in the cirtically acclaimed drama Things We Lost In The Fire. Audrey (Berry) is reeling after a terrible loss, and impusively invities a troubled life long friend Jerry (Del Toro) to stay with her and her two children. With each other's help, Audrey and Jerry discover hope and happiness in their new lives.

DVD Verdict: There are many things that happen in `Things We Lost in the Fire;' so many that it has an immediate impact that keeps a flow through the whole film. While most of the movie contains dialogue that makes the movie move so slowly, it saves itself from becoming a trivial soap opera by making every movement deliberate and absorbing.

Brian (David Duchovny) and Audrey (Halle Berry) Burke start the deliberations as a loving, mixed racial couple. He's a successful businessman, and they have two lively and likable children, Harper (10) and Dory (6), who look up to dad, even though he's a bit rough when teaching the timid Dori how to swim. Not a perfect family, but love and prosperity pervade their home. Instantly, we make a connection when Brian tells Dory she is like a fluroscent light, glowing from within.

Creating friction is Brian's best friend from childhood, Jerry Sunborne (Benedicio Del Toro) who is a heroin addict on the mend and attending Narcotics Anonymous Meetings. In contrast to Brian's well-furnished dwelling, Jerry lives in an apartment that looks like the living space of a cheap motel room. He finds different ways to be on the mend, but as The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" reverberates through his headphones, we start to get an idea of the draw. (And those well-edited time frames that nervously jump to the near future give one a close observation of the mending consciousness of an addict.) Audrey resents how much time and effort Brian puts into their relationship and notes that he is the giver and Jerry is the benefactor with little room for give and take.

Then during a self-less act I won't go into here, Brian loses his life. Both friend and wife are shell-shocked, beyond belief, and Audrey must pick up the pieces as she tends to her emotional ship-wrecked life with two children to bring up by herself.

True to heart, both Audrey and Jerry try to fill the void in their lives. She looks at him in a new light, but as they get closer together, his knowledge of Brian creates some friction as she realizes he had some missing pieces of her late husband she never had when he was alive. Both characters have setbacks and breakthroughs that reveal a lot of truth emotionally about how much heartbreak can effect people in their daily lives.

Audrey finds herself fixing up the garage where a fire destroyed many of their stored possessions, and it is here that Jerry is given a chance to help the family and find an inviting place to stay. The children are taken by him, but Audrey again finds some resentment that resurfaces during his stay. Objectively, Audrey's brother, Neal (Omar Benson Miller), and Brian's closest work associate, Howard (John Carroll Lynch, 'Memento'), are able to bridge some objective realizations in both parties' lives. Further, fellow NA member, Kelly (Allison Lohman) provides some badly needed support for Jerry.

Whatever complaints of plodding development, 'Things We Lost in the Fire' answers quickly by creating an emotional appeal that works early and often throughout the film. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

A Discussion About 'Things We Lost In The Fire'
7 Deleted Scenes
Theatrical Trailer