Defending Your Life

Daniel, an advertising man, dies in a car accident and wakes up in a way station called Judgment City. There is no heaven or hell here; there is a court, and one question: did you overcome your fears while you lived? If he loses, he goes back to earth. The film is not interested in the afterlife. It is interested in the everyday form of cowardice: the scenes entered as evidence are not great moral tests but moments like avoiding a salary negotiation or staying quiet in an argument. Those small surrenders are what land hardest. The form is built like office comedy: the next world is a conference centre, the defence lawyers are functionaries, the food is unlimited and nobody minds the weight. Albert Brooks wrote, directed and stars. Meryl Streep plays a woman going through the same process who really did live bravely, and Rip Torn plays the defence lawyer. Who it is for: viewers who like calm, intelligent American comedy and unusual ideas about the afterlife. Who it is not for: anyone wanting fast jokes. The film is slow, talkative, and its humour feeds on embarrassment.