ADDICTION DRAMA 'FIRE' GETS ITS SUBSTANTIAL HEAT FROM DEL TORO.

Byline: GLENN WHIPP

>FILM CRITIC

"Things We Lost in the Fire" will probably be most American moviegoers' introduction to the Dogma-flavored direction of Susanne Bier, the Danish filmmaker whose movies include "Brothers," "Open Hearts" and "After the Wedding," which was in theaters earlier this year.

Newcomers probably won't be as irritated by Bier's herky-jerky, hand-held camerawork, desaturated colors and odd obsession with random close-ups, especially of characters' eyes. (You could call her a student of pupils.) For the rest of us, Bier's directorial tics are beginning to wear thin, especially when they're employed on material as thin as this tearjerker about addiction.

"Fire" draws all its heat from the performance of Benicio Del Toro, who shows how one great actor can elevate and even save a movie from itself.

Del Toro plays Jerry, a heroin addict, and avoids every genre pitfall possible (those he can't sidestep are required by Allan Loeb's script) and serves up a human soul who is trying, teetering, trying again. Del Toro does all this without one false movement or grandstanding moment. He is absolutely amazing.

Jerry shows up in the life of Audrey (Halle Berry), a woman going through her own recovery process. (I'm guessing you know the circumstances. The trailer and commercial spots don't exactly keep it a secret. But I'm going to be vague about the details.)

Audrey invites Jerry to live in the guest house of her spacious Seattle home.

Jerry bonds with Audrey's two distractingly adorable, tress-blessed young children. Both he and Audrey try to turn the page and start over.

The story's inherent melodrama is a natural for Bier, whose movies with co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen have focused on people taking in unlikely confidants when caught in extreme situations.

Audrey never liked Jerry and resented her saintly husband's (David Duchovny) friendship with his childhood pal. Now their lives are inextricably tied together, not in a romance (thankfully) but over a mutual uncertainty about what the future holds.

There's an emotional truth at the center of the movie, and that honesty is heightened every time Del Toro is on the screen. Jerry has turned to drugs to regain some kind of wonder for looking at the world.

You can see those good feelings gradually seeping back into his soul when Jerry spends time with Audrey's kids. For Jerry, this small, fragile victory provides the first measure of strength he has found in years.

Rather than wallow in anguish (though that's there sometimes, too), Del Toro plays Jerry with a quicksilver weightlessness that constantly produces unexpected moments, gestures, sparks. You can't take your eyes off him. Is he ready to be a movie star?

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

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THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE - Three stars

>R: language, drug content.

>Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Halle Berry.

>Director: Susanne Bier.

>Running time: 1 hr. 59 min.

>Playing: Area wide.

>In a nutshell: Benicio Del Toro saves this addiction tearjerker from itself.

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Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro find common ground in "Things We Lost in the Fire."