Screenwriter Allan Loeb's story is one of beauty, compassion and hope. It apparently didn't find much of an audience in the theaters, but it's the kind of movie a lot of people will likely see on DVD, as I did. It shouldn't lose much in the translation.
A small movie about big emotions, it tells the story of two kinds of recovery. Halle Berry plays a woman grieving the death of her husband.
Benicio Del Toro plays her husband's best friend, a recovering/relapsing heroin addict. They come together and they help each other, though not in the ways you expect--or fear.
That's right, friends, it's another movie about an unconventional male/female relationship. Surprised I liked it?
Apparently playing a mother in this film is one of the things that convinced Berry that she wanted to become one in real life. It's not hard to see why in her performance, and the knowledge that she recently gave birth adds a little something extra.
To watch Berry in this film is to be reminded of a couple of things. One is just how beautiful she is.
While I wait for you to contain your shock, let me emphasize that I don't only mean hot, which she is and which goes without saying. I mean, beautiful.Another is how very, really talented she is. It's a layered, felt performance. This girl's Oscar was not a fluke.
I know more than a few women find Benicio Del Toro sexy, too. I can see it. And he is also, of course, an Oscar winner.
But for all of the work that Del Toro evidentially puts into making his craft seem effortless (and it does), his real Christmas present was that face.
It's the face of an old-fashioned movie star like we might have had in the '50s. Except that in the '50s, he would have played only gang members and other criminals and not many of those.
(He has played his share, but they aren't the only people he plays.)
The movie's good pedigree also extends to producer Sam Mendes, BTW. I don't think American Beauty (which Mendes directed) was as deep as it thought it was. But he's married to Kate Winslet
and the father of one of her children, the villain, so he must have something going for him...David Duchovny plays Berry's husband, seen in flashback. It's a solid performance. Working with Berry and the two young actors who play their children (about whom more in a moment), Duchovny lets you know just how good what they've lost was.
Omar Benson Miller plays Berry's brother, in a part that is as small in size as Miller is large, but key, and brings both a weight and sensitivity to it.
I was especially pleased to recognize him from an episode of The West Wing, proving once again that everything I enjoy connects to that series sooner or later, one way or another.
(In a similar connection, Robin Weigert, one of the stars of Life, has a one-scene part)
(This picture has nothing to do with Allison Lohman's role in the film...but what am I, a mackerel?)
Lohman, an actress whose work is new to me, is strong in another smaller role, as a young woman who befriends Del Toro in NA. One of the things I like about both Miller and Lohman in their roles is that neither tries too hard to "seize their moments."
These are truly supporting performances, and in no way the lesser because of it.
Now. I said I wanted to say a little something about Alexis Llewellyn and Micah Berry, who play Duchovny and Berry's daughter and son, respectively (Micah is no relation to Halle). What I think I want to say is, they're the kind of performances that make you want to forget W.C. Fields.
Director Susanne Bier's were the right hands for this script, and although you may feel yourself tear up once or twice (I did), it feels earned, so you don't resent it.
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