How easily we are numbed by routine. We wake up each morning expecting the world to be much like it always is, barely aware that one day we will awake to find that someone so close, so needed, in our lives is no longer there.

The sudden loss of a loved one is so devastating; the grief can seem unbearable. And yet, we are forced to bear it and — harder still — move on.

There is no set way to work through such a situation; everyone is left to struggle through as best they can, finding some way to honor that lost life and some kind of inner resolution as well. That's the subject of director Susanne Bier's latest, "Things We Lost in the Fire," released in Japan as "Kanashimi ga Kawaku Made."