The first American feature from the Danish director Susanne Bier (After the Wedding) is a melodramatic tale of loss, grief and addiction. Audrey Burke (Halle Berry) seems to have the perfect life - an elegant home, a loving and saintly husband called Brian (David Duchovny), two wonderful kids. Even Brian's best buddy, the junkie Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), is sexy and soulful. Then Audrey's perfect life is torched when Brian is murdered in a random act of violence. She invites Jerry to come and live in her spare room, and what follows is the sombre drama of two damaged people trying to crawl out of the wreckage of their lives. The film packs an emotional punch, but one of the most obvious kind - it's always harrowing when bad things happen to good people with beautiful homes and lots of money. Watching Del Toro's tortured Jerry is a pleasure, but Berry's is a showy, give-me-another-Oscar performance. The film is really a grief-fest that has little to say about loss or addiction, and the characters, for all their torment, lack any kind of depth or real darkness.
15, 188 mins