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Susanne Bier (Denmark, 1960) directed
the comedy Freud Flytter Hjemmefra/ Freud's Leaving Home (1990), Marianne Goldman,
Det Bli'r i Familien/ Family Matters (1993),
Pensionat Oscar/ Like it Was Never Before (1995),
Sekten/ Credo (1997),
Den Eneste Ene/ The One and Only (1999), written by Kim Aakeson,
Livet ar en Schlager/ Once in a Lifetime (2000),
and three films written by
Anders Thomas Jensen:
Elsker Dig for Evigt/ Open Hearts (2002),
Brodre/ Brothers (2004),
and Efter Brylluppet/ After the Wedding (2006).
Her first English-language film,
Things We Lost in the Fire (2008), written by Allan Loeb,
is a touching melodrama of two people who need to rebuild their lives,
one a recovering addict and the other one a widow with children.
The film is overlong, with several scenes that make little sense, like when the widow seems eager to try drugs, or that are overly melodramatic, like when the girl runs after his car (the inevitable tearjerking Hollywoodian scene).
We see scenes of Brian with his children and his wife Audrey
(Halle Berry) and we realize that he's dead and the scenes are flashbacks.
Audrey still cannot enter her husband's studio.
When a friend of her husband writes a computer message, she asks her brother
Neal to reply, as if Brian was still alive.
Audrey suddenly remembers someone that has not been invited to the funeral
and sends her brother to pick him up: her husband's best friend Jerry.
We then see
Jerry (Benicio del Toro)
at the funeral, looking devastated. He briefly meets Audrey,
surprised that she invited him because she always hated him.
Jerry also meets Brian's neighbor and business partner, Howard.
We learn that Jerry and Brian grew up together.
Jerry talks to Brian's three children showing that he knows a lot about them from what Brian told him:
ten-year-old daughter Harper and six-year-old son named Dory.
We see scenes of Audrey's and Brian's happy marriage.
But we also see Audrey worried when Brian walks out to meet Jerry, a
heroin addict, to wish him happy birthday.
Brian takes Jerry to dinner and buys groceries for him.
We then see when Audrey's brother Neal went to Jerry's run-down place to break the news to him
that Brian had been killed. Jerry, waking up stoned or drunk, takes a while
to understand the gravity of the moment, then dresses up and follows Neal to
the funeral.
We see another flashback to Audrey and Brian arguing over Jerry: after the birthday meeting, Audrey noticed that money had disappeared from the car. Brian has no doubt that Jerry didn't take it, but Audrey thinks he's in denial that Jerry is a dangerous man.
We see another flashback in which Brian tries in vain to teach little Dory how to swim but Dory refuses. Then Brian leaves to buy ice cream for the children and
doesn't come back. We see how Brian tried to stop an abusive man who was beating his wife and then man pulled out a gun and shot him dead.
We see the cops showing up at Audrey's house in the middle of the night, delivering the news.
Now the film proceeds chronologically. Audrey tries to go on with her life.
One day she decides to visit Jerry and she learns that he is trying to get rid
of his drug addiction. Then she finds the money that she thought Jerry had stolen from the car.
She invites Jerry to move in with her and the children,
living in an annex that Brian never fixed, and she explains that some day she'll
charge him rent when he finds a job.
He is reluctant but then accepts and Audrey's neighbor Howard help him move.
Howard befriends Jerry: Jerry confesses that he's a heroin addict and
Howard confesses that he hates his wife. Howard insists that Jerry starts
jogging with him in the morning. Howard informs Jerry that Brian left Audrey
a fortune, which means that she doesn't need his rent. So Jerry confronts Audrey
and asks him why she wanted him to move into the annex. She confesses that she
doesn't know but also cruelly tells him what she thinks: that it should have
been him (Jerry the punk) the one getting killed in the streets, not her Brian, the family man.
Jerry begins to play with the children, Harper and Dory, who both adore him.
He also enrolls in a group of
recovering addicts, where he meets Kelly, who is smitten by him.
Howard wants Jerry to pass the exam to become a mortgage broker and coaches him.
Jerry passes the exam.
But
Audrey resents it when Jerry succeeds in making little Dory get into the pool
(something that Brian never succeeded in doing) and when he finds teenager Harper
who has skipped school (Brian told him a secret about the girl).
Audrey, realizing that he's slowly replacing Brian, asks him to move out,
breaking her own children's hearts.
Jerry gets into drugs again. Kelly notices that he disappeared and alerts
Audrey. Now Audrey feels guilty and searches for Jerry in the neighorhood
of homeless addicts until she finds him. She takes him home again and Neal
helps her to keep Jerry away from drugs.
Audrey also meets Kelly, who shares her wisdom: she too lost the lover of her life, although to drugs. Kelly tells Audrey of a rehab clinic that really worked for her, and Audrey decides to pay for Jerry to enroll.
At a dinner Kelly forces Audrey and the children to open up about Brian, instead of avoiding the subject, and this finally heals Audrey of her inner demons.
Howard bids farewell, comically confessing that he's going back to his wife because he's too lonely.
The film ends with a monologue of the recovering Jerry at the clinic.
Haevnen/ The Revenge/ In a Better World (2010),
another collaboration with Jensen,
is a philosophical
parable about revenge. The parable is powerful for a while but the "happy ending" is kind of contrived and lame.
Anton is a Swedish doctor who volunteers in Africa. He has to treat
horrible cases of pregnant women whose belly has been opened by a psychopath "Big Man" who bets on the sex of the foetus.
His wife and two children live in Denmark.
Back in Denmark,
Christian gives the eulogy for his mother's funeral. He resents his father, a busienssman who travels a lot. Christian now has to live alone with him.
Anton's son Elias is harassed every day by bully Lofus and his group of bullies.
Anton and Marianne (also a doctor) are divorcing. Elias hates his mother and loves his father, but it is actually Anton who cheated on Marianne.
They also have a younger son, Morten.
Christian is harassed too by Lofus but is not afraid. One day, witnessing another attack by Lofus on Elias, Christian attacks Lofus with a pump beating him
savagely and then pulls out a knife threatening to kill him.
Interrogated by the police, Elias and Christian refuse to admit that there was a knife.
Elias hid it carefully. Christian gifts the knife to Elias.
All the kids now respect Christian. Christian's philosophy is that you have to be tough in order to be respected, and he is proven right.
Christian takes Elias to the roof of a high-rife building with no protection
and walks to the very edge of the roof.
Elias tells about it to his father Anton who forbids him to do it again.
Elias' father Anton is attacked by a violent dad after Anton tried to separate his younger son Morten from the violent man's son. Anton refuses to get into a fight or call the police: he doesn't believe in responding with violence to violence.
Christian keeps walking along the edge of the high building.
Christian and Elias spot the violent man and take the plate number of his car.
They tell Anton where he can find the violent man, Lars. Anton walks to the
place where Lars works as a car mechanic and confronts him peacefully in front
of the children. Lars slaps him repeatedly and Anton again refuses to get into a fight. Anton tries to explain to the children that Lars is an idiot and a failure, but the children only see that Lars humiliated Anton.
Christian takes Elias again to the edge of the tall building and this time Elias
sits next to him, unafraid of falling.
While Anton is back in Africa, Christian finds fireworks in the basement, enough to make a bomb. Christian wants to get back at Lars.
Christian makes a bomb and they try it out at a secluded place by the sea.
Christian is a kid with a strong sense of justice.
Marianne finds the knife that Elias was hiding in the house and tells Christian's father Claus.
Claus confronts Christian, but
Christian refuses to apologize about the knife and instead attacks his father because he thinks his father wants to sleep with Marianne
and was ready to cheat on his cancer-stricken mother. Christian thinks that
father wanted her mother to die.
Christian now refuses to talk to Elias because Elias' mother found the knife.
Elias walks alone to the top of the building.
Anton flies back to Africa, to his improvised hospital.
Big Man's gang drives into the hospital camp with machine guns terrorizing the villagers: Big Man needs a doctor to cure a wound on a leg.
Anton calmly tells him that all the weapons and cars must be out of the camp.
Big Man is a monster but Anton decides to try to save his leg. The villagers are shocked that Anton would help such a monster.
When a girl dies and one of Big Man's thugs wants to rape her even dead, Anton
loses his temper, kicks out Big Men and his men and lets the mob kill Big Man.
Elias videochat with a distraught Anton over a bad internet connection. Elias tells his father about the bomb but the videochat beaks down and Anton doesn't hear it.
To regain Christian's respect, Elias agrees to blow up Lars' car with the bomb.
Claus tells Christian that his mother wanted to die because of the pain caused by the brain tumor.
Christian punches him in the chest and then rides the bicycle to
the appointment with Elias.
They place the bomb under Lars' car just when a woman and her child are running by.
Elias rushes to stop them and is hit by the explosion.
Elias is hospitalized in serious but not terminal conditions.
Christian confesses to the police that it was all his idea.
Marianne accuses Christian of being a psychopath and kicks him out when he comes at the hospital shouting that he killed Elias, which is not true.
Elias is a hero who saved two people so the police has no intention to prosecute him.
Anton arrives from Africa.
As soon as Elias revives, Elias takes the blame for the whole thing in order to save Christian.
Anton and Marianne are reconciled.
Christian disappears in the night and Claus calls the police to begin the search.
Christian walks to the top of the usual building and is about to jump.
Anton knows where to find him because Elias told him about the building.
Anton finds Christian just in time and tells him that Elias is recovering.
Marianne talks to Christian. Christian recognizes that he's been an idiot.
Christian visits Elias at the hospital.
She then returned to collaborations with Jensen like
Den Skaldede Frisor/ Love is All You Need (2012),
and
En Chance Til/ A Second Chance (2014).
She also directed
Serena (2014), written by Christopher Kyle,
and
Bird Box (2018), an adaptation of Josh Malerman's 2014 novel.
She also directed
TV miniseries: The Night Manager (2016), adapted from John LeCarre's 1993 novel,
The Undoing (2020), and The Perfect Couple (2024).
(Copyright © 2020 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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