Dir. Susanne Bier, US/UK, 2007, 118 mins
Cast: Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny
Review by Carol Allen
Audrey (Berry) is grief stricken after her husband Brian (Duchovny) is killed when intervening in someone else's domestic fight. Reluctantly, she invites his oldest friend Jerry (Del Toro), of whom she's never approved, to the funeral. Jerry is a recovering drug addict living in a halfway house, and Brian was the one person who never gave up on him. Out of loyalty to her husband and to alleviate her own feelings of isolation, Audrey offers him the apartment over the garage in return for giving her help with odd jobs around the house. Slowly, a wary and sometimes spiky friendship develops between them, which gets particularly tricky when Audrey's two pretentiously named children, Harper and Dory, start to get more attached to Jerry than they are to their uptight mother.
Danish director Bier (Open Hearts) has a distinctive talent for finding the little things that make a character or a relationship ring true. For example, in a scene at the funeral reception, when Jerry at the funeral steps outside for a cigarette and Howard (John Carroll Lynch), a friend of the family, scrounges one off him then puts it out quickly when his bossy wife spots him. Jerry then carefully picks up the discarded cigarette and pockets it. It's a little scene that tells us volumes about both characters.
Benicio Del Toro is terrific as Jerry. He looks convincingly rough when he's on the dope, makes the character very engaging, particularly in his scenes with the children and brings a nice humour to the role. There's also an im pressively honest performance from Alison Lohman as Jerry's friend from the addiction group. Although only seen in flashback, Duchovny makes a strong impression as Brian Mr Totally Nice Guy without being wet. Another Bier touch is in the relaxed, cosy and non-sexual way Audrey and Brian curl round each other in bed, which speaks of years of mutual intimacy. You really miss Brian, when his presence finally disappears from the film. Berry is a very beautiful woman but the character she plays is frankly a bit of an insecure and bossy pain in her relationship with both Jerry and her husband. One wonders how it could have been the idyllic marriage we're led to believe it was. She is touching in her grief but not that moving. There's something a bit mannered and calculated about the performance.
There is, in fact, something a bit mannered and self conscious about the whole film, despite the best efforts of Bier to give it a realistic and European sensitivity, cutting off Audrey's histrionics before they go on for too long and ensuring that Jerry's lapse back into dope and his subsequent cold turkey doesn't go over the top. But the film's message about the importance of healing and closure, which rings loudly and clearly through Allan Loeb's screenplay, sometimes makes you feel like you are taking part in a psychotherapy session rather than watching a movie. But it's still worth seeing, particularly for del Toro's performance.
View trailer
|
