{"id":739,"date":"2008-04-03T21:08:33","date_gmt":"2008-04-04T01:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=739"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:55:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T19:55:39","slug":"things-we-lost-in-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Things We Lost in the Fire is kind of a drag"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2b50<\/span>\u2b50<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span><\/span>\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span><\/span>\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span><\/span>\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span><\/span>\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\n\n\t\n<\/svg>\n<\/span><\/span>Rating: 2 out of 5.<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n

Susanne Bier’s Things We Lost in the Fire<\/em> is a melodrama in the vein of Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu’s 21 Grams<\/em> in almost every way: the story of a nuclear family shattered by a random death, told as a nonlinear narrative, with conspicuously arty cinematography, and costarring Benicio Del Toro<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even a single-sentence description of the basic plot conveys how overwrought things get: Audrey (Halle Berry<\/a>) impulsively takes in her dead husband Brian’s (David Duchovny<\/a>) heroin-addicted friend Jerry (Del Toro). Audrey’s motivations are semi-consciously selfish; she perhaps thinks that she can retain some connection with her dead husband by indefinitely extending his fruitless effort to help his childhood friend to kick his drug habit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Benicio<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But unaware of the adage that one must beware what one asks for, she becomes resentful when her plan unexpectedly succeeds. Jerry does in fact begin to kick drugs, a neighbor takes an implausibly quick shine to him and offers him a job, he teaches one of her kids to swim (a task at which her husband had previously failed), and he responds to her flirtatious advances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inexplicably, the movie ends with the wrong Velvet Underground<\/a> song; someone chose “Sweet Jane” over “Heroin.” Nor is there anything from the Low<\/a> album of the same name. If the filmmakers thought these selections were too obvious, then how do you explain everything else in the movie?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susanne Bier’s Things We Lost in the Fire is a melodrama in the vein of Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu’s 21 Grams in almost every way: the story of a nuclear family shattered by a random death, told as a nonlinear narrative, with conspicuously arty cinematography, and costarring Benicio Del Toro. Even a single-sentence description of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[2006,993,308,46,392,1747,2174],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2-stars","category-movies","tag-2006","tag-benicio-del-toro","tag-david-duchovny","tag-drama","tag-halle-berry","tag-susanne-bier","tag-velvet-underground"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-bV","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5769,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/william-friedkins-the-hunted\/","url_meta":{"origin":739,"position":0},"title":"William Friedkin’s The Hunted is solid but unsatisfying","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"September 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"After watching too many sloppily-made thrillers filling up space on Netflix (including Mercury Rising, Double Jeopardy, and Along Came a Spider), it's a relief the my next choice, The Hunted, is so solidly made. 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