One of the key ingredients in a movie about people and their frayed emotions in the wake of personal tragedy is the choice of cast. Even a well-written film which this is, despite some odd choices made by characters can fail if the performances aren't up to standard. Fortunately, the focus is largely on the incredible Benicio Del Toro an inspired piece of casting whose natural, if eccentric acting skills manage to deflect attention away to some degree from Halle Berry's more pedestrian performance.
Berry plays Audrey, loving wife of Brian (David Duchovny), whose is gunned down in the street after preventing a man from beating his wife. Jerry (Del Toro) was best friends with Brian since childhood, but Audrey disapproved of their friendship because of Jerry's heroin habit. A tentative relationship is established between Jerry and Audrey when she offers him lodgings after he tries to kick his habit following Brian's funeral. While Jerry is successful at keeping off the drugs, Audrey finds it difficult to accept the fact that her two children are warming towards him and starts resenting the fact that, despite his dissolute lifestyle, he is still alive while Brian is dead.
Needless to say, Del Toro has just the right kind of brutalised looks required to play a recovering junkie, but there's more to nailing a role than just looking the part. Del Toro really gets under the skin of his character which helps the viewer push aside reservations about a character who is a junkie with morals and standards whilst in the depths of his addiction. Under scrutiny, much of what takes place strains credibility, although Allan Loeb's screenplay is for the most part strong enough to overcome the plot deficiencies.
The film deftly avoids the clichés that are too often the mainstay of this kind of plot (including any kind of romantic sub-plot), and injects a note of uncertainty into what would otherwise be a sort-of happy ending. By the end of the movie, Jerry comes to realise that he has that 'feeling' he was always looking for with heroin, but that having it isn't necessarily enough you also, as Brian would say have to accept it (the good) unquestioningly, and without making further demands of it. Whether he is strong enough to be able to accept the fact is - as his final words in the movie indicate - another matter.
Berry plays Audrey, loving wife of Brian (David Duchovny), whose is gunned down in the street after preventing a man from beating his wife. Jerry (Del Toro) was best friends with Brian since childhood, but Audrey disapproved of their friendship because of Jerry's heroin habit. A tentative relationship is established between Jerry and Audrey when she offers him lodgings after he tries to kick his habit following Brian's funeral. While Jerry is successful at keeping off the drugs, Audrey finds it difficult to accept the fact that her two children are warming towards him and starts resenting the fact that, despite his dissolute lifestyle, he is still alive while Brian is dead.
Needless to say, Del Toro has just the right kind of brutalised looks required to play a recovering junkie, but there's more to nailing a role than just looking the part. Del Toro really gets under the skin of his character which helps the viewer push aside reservations about a character who is a junkie with morals and standards whilst in the depths of his addiction. Under scrutiny, much of what takes place strains credibility, although Allan Loeb's screenplay is for the most part strong enough to overcome the plot deficiencies.
The film deftly avoids the clichés that are too often the mainstay of this kind of plot (including any kind of romantic sub-plot), and injects a note of uncertainty into what would otherwise be a sort-of happy ending. By the end of the movie, Jerry comes to realise that he has that 'feeling' he was always looking for with heroin, but that having it isn't necessarily enough you also, as Brian would say have to accept it (the good) unquestioningly, and without making further demands of it. Whether he is strong enough to be able to accept the fact is - as his final words in the movie indicate - another matter.