Film Review: Defending Your Life (1991)

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A film can have somewhat complicated premise and deal with some serious subjects, while being light-hearted at the same time. This rare achievement belongs to Albert Brooks, writer and director of 1991 fantasy comedy Defending Your Life.

Brooks also stars in the film in the role of Daniel Miller, Los Angeles advertising executive. The plot begins on 39th birthday, when he treats himself with BMW convertible. He doesn’t enjoy driving it much because soon afterwards dies in collision with a bus. He wakes up in strange place called Judgement City, which looks very much as some kind of luxury resort. He gradually realises that he died and that he arrived in very special kind of afterlife – a way station where he will be judged for his actions during the life. Bob Diamond (played by Rip Torn), who is introduced as his defence attorney, explains that those who are judged favourably advance to new and higher level of existence while those who don’t return to Earth to be reincarnated. At the trial prosecutor Lena Foster (played by Lee Grant) confronts him with various episodes from his life and tries to prove that he never overcame his fears while and, therefore, must try again. In the meantime, Daniel seems to enjoy the place because of its cuisine as well as company of another recently died person, a beautiful woman named Julia (played by Meryl Streep) with whom he falls in love.

While comedy dealing with afterlife is hardly original idea, Brooks gave it an interesting spin. Unlike most of those films, Defending Your Life almost entirely takes place in afterlife, which is portrayed as place seemingly indistinguishable from Earth. Brooks gives only small hints that are revealed to audience and the protagonist at the beginning – strange clothes, almost all people are old, food is plentiful, tasty and everyone can eat it without fear of getting sick or fat. Brooks also discards traditional Judeo-Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell and builds his fictional world on New Age. The world doesn’t seem to be perfect and instead of angels we have heavenly bureaucrats which are either incompetent or strangely apathetic to the fate of freshly arrived souls they are supposed to take care of. Although Brooks appears to take this concept seriously, he also uses it as a basis for humour. Jokes, ranging from slapstick to some that deal with some very personal issues for Brooks (like the one referencing tragic death of his father Harry Parke), vary in quality. General impression is however positive, mostly due to superb production design and very good cast. Albert Brooks, who is an experienced comedian both on stage and on screen, handles his role very well. Meryl Streep, although appears relatively briefly, obviously enjoys her role and has good chemistry with Brooks. Veteran Rip Torn is also good as Daniel’s overenthusiastic but strangely ineffective attorney. Main problem with Defending Your Life is extremely slow pace which makes the film at least twenty minutes longer than it should be. Some might consider the obligatory happy ending inconsistent with the established rules of Brooks’ universe. On the other hand, it would be much harder for Defending Your Life to leave audience happy with different ending. The film was originally liked by critics, although it didn’t create much enthusiasm among the audience. Despite its flaws, it is a good and mostly entertaining film that looks smarter than most Hollywood comedies today and, as such, deserves recommendation.

RATING: 6/10 (++)