Originally I was going to review Albert Brooks new book 2030, but the first 100 pages read more like an essay than a novel. So I decided to put it back on the shelf and try to read it again later, since I’m getting backed up on books. But, since I still love Albert Brooks, I decided to review my favorite movie of his, Defending Your Life. Brooks generally only releases a movie every 5-6 years (and 2030 reads more like a movie than a book so it might have started as a screenplay) and generally they are very high quality. With Defending Your Life, Brooks takes on a whole range of topics including love and the afterlife. So let, see what is worth defending in your life.

Daniel Miller(Albert Brooks) is an executive who’s just bought a new BMW, while fiddling with the radio, he gets run over by a bus. He wakes up and is taken on a bus to a hotel. Confusion is overcome by exhaustion until the next day. Daniel is brought to a lawyer’s(Rip Torn) office and the afterlife is explained to him. There will be a 3 day trial where the prosecution and defense will show several days from Daniel’s life to try and convince the judge that his life was brave and not controlled by fear. If he succeeds then he will move up the ladder, otherwise he’s sent back down to Earth for another chance in his next life. In between court times, he can wander around Judgment City eat all his hearts content and see the sites.

While in a comedy show with a really bad comedian, he meets Julia (Meryl Streep). A fun loving woman who was killed after she tripped over a chair, hit her head on the ground and rolled into the pool (“What did the East German Judge give you?” quipped Daniel).  Daniel and Julia start seeing the sites together, including a past life pavillion (hosted by Shirley MacLaine) where Julia sees that she used to be a valiant knight and Daniel sees that he was eaten by a lion. As their relationship grows, Daniel starts realizing that his fears in life might cause him to be sent back while Julia is definitely moving forward (he slips into her trial and sees a clip from her life of her saving animals from a house fire).

Brooks does a wonderful job of showing off the fears and insecurities that make up daily life and playing it for life with the underlying message of how these fears are hurting our life. There are a good number of gags and great lines with a fun comic sensibility. Brooks is wonderful as the maniacally self-absorbed person who only starts realizing how badly he lived his life when he is being judged on it. Meryl Streep does a great job as pretty much a cypher. She’s smart, funny and pretty much as close to a perfect person as you can get. But she plays it in such a way that you like her. Normally that type of role would be bland since you never really get to know her that much. But Streep sells it and makes the character more three dimensional than it would other wise be. Rip Torn does a fun turn as Brook’s lawyer playing someone who’s smarter than Brooks, but who doesn’t want to flaunt it while at the same time flaunting it. The scenery looks for the most part like the non-casino parts of Vegas where you can find any type of show or food in a small area.

Overall it’s a smart, fun movie. Brooks and Streep have a wonderful chemistry that really propels the movie forward. There’s enough meat on the story to keep viewers interested and it leads to an expected climax. It’s not a great movie, but if you like Albert Brooks, you will enjoy Defending Your Life. Recommended.