Defending Your Life *** (1991, Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant) – Classic Movie Review 9678

The 1991 film Defending Your Life is an amiable, hit-and-miss romantic fantasy comedy drama from multi-talented writer-director Albert Brooks, in which he also stars.

The star’s character Daniel Miller is killed in a car crash and taken to Judgment City, where Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) defends his moral courage and prosecutor Lena Foster (Lee Grant) proves his cowardice, and then he meets and falls in love with Julia (Meryl Streep).

Defending Your Life is pleasantly okay with some warm appeal, but it is underpowered and overstretched at 112 minutes, though the good cast helps (also including Buck Henry, Shirley MacLaine as herself, Peter Schuck, and Ethan Embry). Brooks is also good value, and so are Streep, Torn and Grant.

Defending your Life is directed by Albert Brooks, runs 112 minutes, is made by Geffen Pictures, is released by Warner Bros, is written by Albert Brooks, is shot by Allen Daviau, is produced by Michael Grillo, is scored by Michael Gore and is designed by Ida Random.

Cinematographer Allen Daviau died of Covid-19 on 15 April 2020, aged 77. New Orleans-born Daviau was nominated for best cinematography Oscars for Spielberg movies The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – along with two Barry Levinson films, Avalon and Bugsy. He also shot the Gobi desert sequence for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His last movie was Van Helsing (2004).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9678

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