Walker Art Center’s annual Women with Vision film festival presents new work by women directors from around the world. A discovery in 2002 was Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, then unknown to US audiences, with her film Open Hearts. In 2005 the festival showed her next film, Brothers. Now working in the United States, Bier’s first studio film is Dreamwork’s The Things We Lost in the Fire.
Academy Award-winners Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro star in director Susanne Bier’s (the Oscar-nominated After the Wedding) powerful new drama Things We Lost in the Fire, a compelling drama about two people brought together by fate.
Audrey Burke (Berry) is reeling from the shock of the news that her loving husband of 11 years, Brian (David Duchovny), the father of their two young children, has been killed in a random act of violence. Desperate to fill the painful void caused by her husband’s death, Audrey impulsively turns to Jerry Sunborne (Del Toro), a down-and-out addict who had been her husband’s close friend since childhood. She invites him to move into the room adjacent to their garage in the hope that he can help her and her children cope with their sudden loss. Jerry faces a daily battle to stay off drugs, but in his unexpected role as surrogate parent and friend to Audrey’s son and daughter, he finds a core of inner resilience. As Jerry and Audrey navigate grief and denial, they discover the strength to move forward. 2007, 35mm, 117 minutes.
