Defending Your Life | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

Name: Defending Your Life
Released: 1991-3-22
Cast: Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant, Buck Henry

Defending Your Life

PG
1h 51m
1991

98%

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Albert Brooks wrote, directed and stars with Academy Award winner Meryl Streep in this delightfully offbeat romantic comedy that shows it's never too late to change your life--even if you're already dead. When advertising executive Daniel Miller (Brooks) dies suddenly in a car accident, he's transported to Judgment City and faces a tribunal to decide whether he will go to a better place or return to earth for another incarnation. It doesn't look good for Miller, but unexpectedly and for the first time in his life--or his past lives--Miller discovers love.

Director:

Albert Brooks

Producer:

Michael Grillo, Herb Nanas

Writer:

Albert Brooks

Cast:

Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant, Buck Henry

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

98%

Critics Consensus: With Defending Your Life, writer-director-star Albert Brooks softens his trademark caustic humor -- and proves he's every bit as funny when he's tugging heartstrings.

Reviews

Paste Magazine

Mitchell Beaupre

It’s a bold, fascinating concept that feels true to the heart of someone like Brooks, a man who has made neuroses an integral part of his artistic brand.

There are also elements of courtroom drama without otherworldly components or CGI effects. If released 80 years ago, “Defending Your Life” could have easily been a Frank Capra film, likely a companion piece to “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

November 4, 2023

FULL REVIEW

Southern Voice (Atlanta)

Terry Francis

Brooks manages to wring some laughs out of admittedly banal material, and the film is socially on target in some of its satire. The casting is very fine. Meryl Streep brings humor and flashes of authentic feeling to her role.

Defending Your Life is about handling our fears and being able to live life as it was intended to be.

March 6, 2023

FULL REVIEW

El Nuevo Herald (Miami)

Rene Jordan

As much as I like this film, I can understand those who cannot be taken away by its ironic fantasy, will hate it to death; from beginning to end. [Full review in Spanish]

January 21, 2023

FULL REVIEW