Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life, which a studio (Warners) distributed, continued to display the director’s singular independent spirit.
Grade: B+
Unfolding as an afterlife fantasy fable, the film belongs to the life-after-death genre (Liliom, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Heaven Can Wait).
However, whereas most filmmakers treat this subject comically and whimsically, Brooks turns earnest and, by his own standards, a tad too conventional.
Brooks plays L.A. yuppie Daniel Miller, an ads exec who crashes his new BMW convertible on his 39th birthday and dies.
The movie is set in purgatory, Judgment City, which looks like the San Fernando Valley with manicured lawns, wrap around glass mini-skyscrapers, and smiling people who greet everyone with “have a nice day.”
Daniel is put on trial with a defense attorney, Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) and a prosecutor named Lena Foster (Lee Grant), who both examine and analyze scenes from his life by projecting them onscreen.
Not surprisingly, they are mostly scenes of humiliation and defeat, in which Daniel allowed himself to be shamed by a bully, or failed to invest in a company that later became profitable.
In short, Daniel’s life was dominated by fear. If he can prove now that he has conquered fear, he would on to a higher form of existence, in which humans use a larger portion of their brains. However, if found guilty of cowardice, he’ll be sent back to Earth.
A new romance with a fearless person, Julia (Meryl Streep at her most attractive), a divorcee and mother of two, is used as a test to whether Daniel has the courage to date her and show feelings, or continue to be held back by fear of rejection,
Brooks never specifies what’s wrong with being sent back to Earth. Why is it considered a failure?
The production, with crowds in hospital robes walking in the sterile corridors, is visually impressive.
However, veering between a satirical comedy nor a morality tale, Defending Your Life struggles with variegating the requited tone; Brooks’ trademark caustic humor is largely absent.
In too many sequences, the movie is more like a long, earnest therapy session whose “carpe diem” lesson, “seize the day,” is not developed enough a guiding motif for this whimsical comedy.
Though greeted with largely positive reviews, the movie was a commercial failure.
Cycle of Carpe Diem Films
Defensing Your Life’s motto, “carpe diem,” prevailed in other pictures of the era, notably Dead Poets Society (1989), Field of Dreams (1989) and Ghost (1990).
Cast
Albert Brooks as Daniel Miller
Meryl Streep as Julia
Rip Torn as Bob Diamond
Lee Grant as Lena Foster
Buck Henry as Dick Stanley, Daniel’s substitute attorney
George D. Wallace as Daniel’s Judge
Lillian Lehman as Daniel’s Judge
S. Scott Bullock as Daniel’s Father
Carol Bivins as Daniel’s Mother
Susan Walters as Daniel’s Wife
Gary Beach as Car Salesman
Shirley MacLaine has a cameo as the holographic host of the “Past Lives Pavilion,” a reference to her known belief in reincarnation.
Credits:
Directed, written by Albert Brooks
Produced by Robert Grand, Michael Grillo, Herb Nanas
Cinematography: Allen Daviau
Edited by David Finfer
Music by Erroll Garner, Michael Gore
Production: Geffen Film Company
Distributed by Warner
Release date: March 22, 1991
Running time: 111 minutes
Budget: $20 million
Box office: $16.4 million
