Post by StevePulaski on Sept 28, 2016 14:18:03 GMT -5
Defending Your Life (1991)
Directed by: Albert Brooks
Directed by: Albert Brooks
Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks look into their past lives in Defending Your Life.
Rating: ★★★½
Within five minutes of Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life - his fourth directorial effort - Brooks' Daniel Miller, a Los Angeles-based advertising executive, is killed in a head-on collision with a bus and sent to the afterlife. He arrives in what appears to be purgatory, a drab and gray-land known as "Judgment City," populated by the newly deceased. Daniel quickly learns, upon checking into an orderly hotel and donning an off-white robe, that his purpose here is to have his life of Earth judged.
The process of judging a life involves a defense attorney, in this case, Bob Diamond (Rip Torn), going before judges to determine whether or not Daniel lived his life with courage and without fear. If the court states that Daniel lived his life adequately, he'll be sent to the next phase of existence, where Bob states, he'll be able to access more of his brain, whereas if the courts rule against him, he'll be sent back to Earth, reincarnated as someone else, and will have to try again - with no memory of past events. This is Daniel's twentieth life.
Despite the ugly color palette of Judgment City, the amenities are pretty splendid. There is a bowling alley, a comedy club, and the added benefit of eating whatever you want without gaining any weight - such a fantasy only of which an American can dream. Daniel eventually meets Julia (Meryl Streep), a woman who essentially represents everything he isn't, in both her ambition and her ability not to let fear cripple nor distract her. The two strike a genial relationship as they both wait for their inevitable trial.
Defending Your Life has Brooks working with a tangible, fairly heavy concept, which is a stark contrast to his previous features like Lost in America and the even looser, more free-form Modern Romance. Brooks works well under both circumstances, but here, his ability to really nurture and develop this concept until it blossoms into something truly impacting and significant is a marvel. The added self-deprecation of character are collectively minimized for keener observations of life that Brooks had only accentuated in passing as his character was finding new ways to cripple or stunt a relationship. The concept here is wonderfully formed and brought-to-life.
This is also one of the first Brooks films where a slew of performances really stand out, as well. Rip Torn does excellent work as Daniel's defense attorney, taking moments from Daniel's thirty-nine years of life and playing them back before the prosecutor (Lee Grant), who really wants to challenge Daniel and grill him over his choices in life. Meryl Streep also finds herself in arguably the most lax and freeing role she's ever assumed, not bound by the strict demands of embodying a well-recognized social or political figure, and simply showing bits of her perky, charismatic self.
The ending of Defending Your Life, while evoking a bit more optimism in its message than the average Brooks' film, still has undertones of sadness given the inevitable outcome for both characters, but such things shouldn't really be discussed or overanalyzed as much as they should simply be felt. And that's what Defending Your Life largely is - a film to think about and feel as it crafts a sensational concept, infuses it with great performances, and gives it a great deal of sustenance while adding rationed doses of optimism and cynicism into the mix.
Starring: Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, and Lee Grant. Directed by: Albert Brooks.