Defending Your Life
Description
Immediately following his death by bus, Daniel finds himself in the afterlife facing his past. If you can’t make a case for having lived a full and fearles
superb music score won an Academy Award.s life, you must go back to Earth and try again. But Daniel doesn’t want to go back after he meets Julia in this heavenly fable written and directed by Albert Brooks.Amazon.com
Albert Brooks proves there’s laughs after death with this almost heavenly comedy–almost heaven as in Judgment City, where recently perished Daniel Miller (Brooks) learns whether he is worthy of advancing to a higher plane of existence or will be sent back to earth for another incarnation.
His fate will be determined in a very special trial, during which scenes from his life are replayed on a giant screen. “Isn’t it realistic?” a judge asks. “It makes some people nauseous.” While the steely prosecutor (Lee Grant) will try to prove that Daniel failed in life to face his fears and insecurities, his glad-handing, reassuring defender (Rip Torn) will argue on behalf of this hapless “little brain” (a Judgment City term for residents of earth).
As Woody Allen did for the future in Sleeper, so does Brooks create an original vision of the afterlife. In Judgment City, white-robed residents can eat as much as they want without guilt or fear of gaining weight. They can also visit the Past Lives Pavilion, where they are greeted by a hologram of–who else–Shirley MacLaine.
Daniel finds himself touched by an angel. Meryl Streep gives an enchanting performance as Julia, whose exemplary life is in stark contrast to his. During her trial, the court watches in rapture as she saves not only children, but a cat from a burning building.
Daniel and Julia are a match made in Judgment City, but first Daniel must summon up the courage to express his true feelings for her, or she will surely advance without him.
Defending Your Life is Brooks’s most ambitious film and, with Mother, his most accessible. –Donald Liebenson
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If I could give this film no stars I would. The dialog was awful. The was no chemisty between the actors. As my spouse said, “I guess if you can you write in Meryl Streep into your own movie, you do.” My spouse slept though the last two thirds of the film. I only wish that I did. If I have to defend my life, like Brooks did, I will regret not being BRAVE enough to turn off the tape and waste my 2 bucks rental. Wasting my time watching this film is something I cannot defend in this life or another!
Rating: 1 / 5
Defending Your Life
This movie shows us that in order to move on to a better life, we can’t make any mistakes. For instance, if you let a kid bully you in elementary school. If you are perfect and have saved people from at least one fire, you might get to go to Heaven. This movie makes me want to vomit with rage.
Rating: 1 / 5
Defending Your Life
I’ve been hearing about what a terrific cult film this is so I had to see it. It’s actually a very conventional boy-meets-girl flick, the only difference being this time it happens in the afterlife. Brooks’ depiction of the “holding area” we go to after our demise, while we re waiting to see if we qualify for heaven, is amusing, but once there he does little with his premise except 1) have Brooks fall instantly in love with Meryl Streep (not hard to do, actually) and 2) sit through his worst moments of cowardice, which he has to defend with the help of his lawyer, played by Rip Torn, against a prosecutor, Lee Grant, who makes Marcia Clarke look like Miss Congeniality.
The two problems I have with this movie are 1) the romance is unconvincing. We never really see a moment of connection between the two–it’s just instant love and “I’ve never met anyone like you” when they barely know each other, and it’s more of a plot device than real character development. And 2) the film’s ultimate message is muddled. At first the film seems to say those in the afterlife have it over us because of their superior intelligence–they use “more than 50% of their brains.” They call us “little brains” and they delight in our inability to comprehend things that to them are so simple.
But when Brooks’ character’s trial begins, it centers on his not taking risks, not his intellectual inferiority. But risk-taking is inherently opposed to intelligent, rational, considered decision-making, which has at its core self-preservation and calculation instead of impulsiveness and immediate gratification. Thus it’s hard to fault Brooks for what he does and doesn’t do–here was the opportunity for some real moral dilemmas, but instead the film shows such minor transgressions that we should all hope our lives are so clean. (And this is a man whose career was advertising! Lots of opportunities here, all unused by Brooks.) On the other hand, Meryl Streep’s character does well with the “big brains” in her trial. In one scene from her extraordianry life, Meryl rushing back into her burning house, after having saved her two children, to rescue the family cat. But I would argue that risking making your kids orphans just to save Fluffy is very *un*inteligent behavior. Have you ever heard a fire fighter praise a mother for leaving her kids at the curbside to go back in and get the cat? This is what pleases our keepers above? They’re not very good keepers in that case.
The same is true of Brooks’ final act: is running in front of a bunch of speeding busses something someone who uses more than 50% of his brain would do? After all, this is how he got killed to begin with.
Many readers will think I’m being overly-analytical for a comedy, but in a comedy of ideas the ideas have to work. Even a “brain dead” comedy like Bad Santa was *consistent* in its outlook.
The performances are rather bland. Albert Brooks is standard issue Albert Brooks, but even here I miss the more manic qualities he displays in many of his other films (Lost In America, Modern Romance, Broadcast News). This seems to be a “softer” Brooks, and it gets boring. Streep does the best she can with a really paper-thin role. We never get why she connects so strongly with Brooks after exchaning a few banalities with him, and if I were him I’d fear she were interested in me only because everyone else is over 70. Rip Torn does his typical comic stuff, but we never really get into why he’s so laid back about providing a defense for Brooks, and there’s a bit in the middle where he disappears for a day that is never really explained, since Brooks’ defense doesn’t go any differently with Torn’s substitute (Buck Henry). The best person in the picture may well be Lee Grant, who attacks her role with zest and is credible as a tough-as-nails prosecutor “just doing her job.”
Can’t recommend this flick very highly, unless you’re an Albert Brooks completist who must see every film he is involved with.
Rating: 2 / 5
Defending Your Life
I expected more from this movie. Though the plot topic was intriguing; having one’s life reviewed by beings of higher intelligence who decide if you can move on, it “devolved” into cheap cliches (heaven is a place in which one can gorge themself and not gain any weight… ugh, how pedestrian) and judgements based on whether one stands up for themself, nevermind being good/kind/generous, etc. Also, I thought the film was from a keenly male perspective. This somewhat oafish Al Brooks really does not seem all that charming, and I could hardly believe that Meryl Streep’s character, the “good hearted” Julia, would be so entraced with his “humor” that she would find him irresistable and decide not to move on. All in all good concept and some humorous parts, but the rest was just…too unevolved to be enjoyable.
Rating: 2 / 5
Defending Your Life
BLAZING SADDLES and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN both rate among the all-time great comedies, but those who claim writer-director Mel Brooks is no longer funny should watch DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, one of The Master’s most amusing, poignant, and yes, even thought-provoking, works. After being hit by a bus driver who didn’t care for the music blaring out of his posh new car, the Brooks character awakens to find himself in “Judgement City,” where a frank but kindly defense attorney, (MEN IN BLACK’s Rip Torn, in a star-making performance), hopes to prove his client is worthy of moving on to the next plane of existence. Mel even has a charming, (and convincing), romance with Oscar winner Meryl Streep, who’s never been this likeable onscreen before.
DEFENDING YOUR LIFE finds writer-director-star Brooks at the top of his game. Sure, SPACEBALLS and LIFE STINKS offered bigger, more obvious bellylaughs, but DEFENDING YOUR LIFE leaves viewers with questions about their own mortality and what it all means. Throw in a dynamic, hit-filled soundtrack by THE EARNEST CROWS and you’ve got a comedy that can’t miss!
Rating: 4 / 5
Defending Your Life