Things We Lost in the Fire
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: October 19, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
8
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
89
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
In the end this movie belongs to Del Toro. He imbues Jerry with such life, such ambiguity, such unsentimental complexity and depth that you can’t help but feel you’re watching the most intricately mapped depiction of addiction and strained humanity the film world has ever given us. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Emotionally challenging and honest. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Allen Loeb's first produced screenplay is an unvarnished treatment of death and its aftermath that's unusual for a Hollywood film. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Berry gives a riveting performance, but as a deeply decent man trapped in a hell of his own making, Del Toro gives the kind of career performance Berry gave in "Monster's Ball." Read full review
80
EmpireAlan Morrison
The script is structurally similar to "21 Grams," but restrained turns and perceptive direction make this honest rather than manipulative. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Things We Lost in the Fire finds Bier at an interesting juncture, half-Dogmatic, half traditionalist. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Del Toro is the movie's force field. This is a performance you will not forget. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The only downside is that Bier's vision of upper-middle-class America does not always seem authentic. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The movie makes some missteps, most of them in pacing and length, and the story veers occasionally into melodrama, but it is saved by the powerful performance of Benicio Del Toro. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is an engrossing melodrama, and it has its heart in the right place. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The honesty outweighs the hokiness by a fair margin. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
It is a testament to how well the movie is made that even the most hardened viewer might find himself tearing up at moments -- and you won't have to hate yourself in the morning. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
The result is a film that's more credible in its building blocks than in its whole. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
Outstanding in support roles are Alison Lohman, playing a friend of Jerry's, and John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who befriends Jerry. Read full review
75
PremiereGlenn Kenny
The film also has an unexpected and rich vein of humor. John Carroll Lynch -- you might know him as Norm Gunderson of "Fargo" -- is a stitch as a neighbor of the Burkes. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Bier is one of the cinema's most acute observers of intimate relations, her Scandinavian reserve muting the inherent melodrama of her material, and she draws piercing, modestly scaled performances from Duchovny, Del Toro, Alison Lohman, and John Carroll Lynch. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Well-acted yet strangely inert, Fire explores the messy human emotions of grief, but it'd be a lot more resonant if the guy everyone's mourning weren't so fatally perfect, so unforgivably superhuman. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Apart from the mobile camera and a moderately challenging time-jumping script, this is weepy women's cable-television fare of the tears-and-cuddles variety. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Were there such a thing as a low-carb melodrama, Things We Lost in the Fire would be it - all the tears, half the guilt. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Susanne Bier is a bomb thrower. The explosives in the films by the Danish director are emotional and provoke torrents of tears, richly earned. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A live-wire performance by Benicio Del Toro sparks an otherwise morose study of loss, addiction and catharsis. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Mr. Del Toro is a fearless actor, and his Jerry, a heroin addict lurching toward redemption, is the heart and soul, as well as the haunted, rubbery visage, of a story of grief and loss that would be fairly lifeless without him. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Things are sporadically troublesome about the film. The story goes in and out of being self-consciously earnest and ponderous, a situation that numerous tight close-ups of people's eyes does nothing to help. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
No matter what panache Bier adds, Things We Lost is still a TV-scaled tear-duct drama about a beautiful woman who pushes past sadness in her House & Garden home. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
An unstable mix of a tearjerker, junkie-recovery story and odd-couple pairing. The film marks the American debut of Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, whose European films show a strong affinity for stories of human frailties and of families unraveling. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyJulia Wallace
Benicio del Toro’s a squinty-eyed genius, and the only reason this film is halfway worth seeing. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
This movie asks us to "accept the good" in life - not a bad message. But to overpraise Things We Lost in the Fire would be to accept the mediocre. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Although neither Ms. Berry nor Mr. Del Toro can be faulted in their scenery-chewing moments, these star turns make you uncomfortably aware that they are Oscar-conscious auditions for the Big Prize. Their naked ambition subtly contaminates a movie that, despite its fine acting, has the emotional impact of a general anesthetic. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle Smith
Made to win awards, and I'm here to present it with one: the Cliché of the Year honors, otherwise known as the Hackney. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Del Toro will probably get an Oscar nod for his Jerry, because the film is so full of Oscar moments, including a cold-turkey detox bit. He rumbles and shivers and screeches and bangs his head on the wall and takes a shower in his clothes. I never believed a second of it. Read full review
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