Defending Your Life         4 ½ stars

I recently took in Defending Your Life, the 1991 Albert Brooks movie about an advertising exec who is killed in an auto accident and ends up in an afterlife where the new arrivals must face a sort of trial and defend how they lived their life. Brooks is quite the master at writing material that is bitingly funny, taking aim at the selfish nature of people. Unfortunately, of the seven movies that Brooks has written and/or directed, I can’t recall seeing any of them before; (though I do remember seeing the shorts he created for Saturday Night Live in the seventies.) In Life, Daniel finds that instead of going to heaven he is in an existence between lives in Judgment City, a place he shares with many other recently departed souls. The place is nothing like how the afterlife is depicted in many other movies with clouds and angels with wings, but instead resembles corporate America with spotless hotels, restaurants and trams to carry the inhabitants to various destinations. The staff is polite and makes sure that the arrivals are comfortable. In Judgment City the subjects are assigned a defense attorney and a prosecutor and face a trial where their lives are reviewed and a judgment is rendered based on whether they have done enough to face their fear during their lives and thus either advance to the next level of existence or be returned to Earth where they will live another life. In the more advanced levels people learn to use an ever-increasing portion of their brain. Daniel is assigned to Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) for his defense and to Lena (Lee Grant) as his prosecutor and must view segments of his life showing what he did in certain stressful situations. Both sides argue their case in front of the judges. During his stay, Daniel meets a young, sweet woman, Julia (Meryl Streep) who is also facing trial and quickly forms a bond with her. (It does seem odd to Daniel that Julia has scored a much nicer hotel than he did.) Thus, besides being an imaginative take on the afterlife, the movie is a romantic comedy as well. Albert Brooks has created a movie that is low key, very funny and conveys a good message about how people live their lives and try to meet expectations. And even better, it has a happy ending that will make everyone feel good about it. Apparently, Defending Your Life is much less harsh than Brooks’ other movies, especially Lost in America. But I haven’t seen them so have to take the critics word for it. I do know that you can’t go wrong with this movie, so I highly recommend it.