The story centers around a woman named Audrey (played by Halle Berry), who just lost her husband Brian (David Duchovny). This isn’t a spoiler; it’s the crux of the film’s plot. In the throes of her loss, Audrey invites her husband’s drug addicted friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro) to come stay with her and her kids.
There is an awkward tension between Audrey and Jerry. On one hand she needs Jerry around. Her husband saw something in Jerry that she had not, and she wanted to discover something about her husband by learning more about Jerry. She also needed a male figure around. On the other hand, she felt a lot of disdain towards Jerry. Audrey points out how unfair it is that Jerry should still be alive after the bad choices he’s made while her husband, an all around good man, was killed.
What follows is something that was difficult to watch. Not because the story was gripping or heartfelt, but because it bounced around so much. Editing was done in a way that I suppose was meant to be artistic. There were many intentional jump cuts, and the plot was hacked up in a Quentin Tarantino type fashion. At times you get to watch something which I assume was in the present, and then at times without transition or visual differentiation it would slip back in time.
Perhaps this was a story telling mechanism, meant to transfer to the audience the sense of confusion and chaos surrounding a sudden loss… but it made the characters very two dimensional and hard to identify with. We were almost immediately thrown into the grief of the situation without getting a chance to learn why we should be grieving. While a valid attempt at character development is made, and acting is very believable, the story and dialogue just weren’t enough to keep me interested. I had to fight to watch this move from start to close.