Meet Joe Black **** (1998, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Claire Forlani) – Classic Movie Review 688

Based on the 1934 Fredric March film Death Takes a Holiday, director Martin Brest’s sumptuous, wildly romantic drama from 1998 was said to have gone $30million over budget and cost an astonishing $90million.

Brad Pitt plays a recently deceased young man whose hunky body Death decides to use to take a break from Heaven and walk among the living. On Earth, he meets and starts to fall in love with Susan (Claire Forlani), the young beautiful daughter of troubled business tycoon Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins), who’s just about to celebrate his 60th birthday.

Death’s intention was to take old Bill back to Heaven with him, but he soon wants to know more about life on Earth, getting the tycoon to act as a guide for him, as well as falling for Susan, who hasn’t any idea who she’s getting attracted to.

It’s meticulously directed by Brest at an extraordinary three-hour length that had many of the punters running for the exit doors half way through. Even if it makes death seem like an eternity, it is hypnotically compelling, wonderful to look at and swirlingly romantic for all those prepared to surrender to its many captivating charms.

Hopkins gives a marvellously controlled and magnetic performance, a commanding Pitt delineates his two characters very nicely and certainly makes death look worth embracing, and Marcia Gay Harden is super in a telling portrait of Hopkins’s bruised, neglected-feeling older daughter. Unfortunately, it was not a big hit, and it grossed just half of its $90million cost in the US.

Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, the Italian original play Death Takes a Holiday by Alberto Casella and the 1934 screenplay by Maxwell Anderson, Gladys Lehman and Walter Ferris.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 688 derekwinnert.com