Now Daniel is dead, but it's not all bad. He's not alone. He's with a group of other recently dead people, all from the Western half of the U.S. and dressed in white robes. They are temporarily in Judgment City, an otherworldly place made to resemble Earth. Each of the newly dead must defend their life in a series of court hearings, which include two judges, a prosecutor, a defender, and a defendant.
Daniel is assigned Bob (Rip Torn) as his defender. Bob is eager and optimistic, but no match for the prosecutor, Lena (Lee Grant). The judges (George Wallace, Lillian Lehman) seem skeptical of Daniel's explanations. The hearings are obsessed with whether Daniel overcame fear, or was overwhelmed by it, at various moments in his life.
Daniel's hearings are not going particularly well. The stakes are high. If the judgment is against him, he will return to Earth and reincarnate. But if the judges pass him, he moves on to adventures in the afterlife.
Meanwhile, Judgment City has its pleasures, such as restaurants and nightclubs. At the latter, he meets Julia (Meryl Streep), a radiant woman his own age.
Julia's hearings are going splendidly. It becomes obvious that she will advance, while Daniel will likely be sent back to Earth. As their romance heats up, it gives Daniel all the more incentive to win his high stakes court case.
Buck Henry has a supporting role as a guest defender. Shirley MacLaine, an outspoken believer in reincarnation, shows up as the hologram host in the Hall of Past Lives. Albert Brooks real-life father was a comedian who died onstage, which leads to in-jokes at a scene with stand-up comic Roger Behr.
How others will see it. As with most Albert Brooks films, Defending Your Life was not a box office smash. Its status as a comedy may have it from earning notice on the festival circuit. For once, Streep wasn't nominated except at the Saturn Awards, where the movie also garnered nods for Best Fantasy Film and Best Writing.
Today at imdb.com, Defending Your Life has a reasonable 16K user votes and a consistent user rating of 7.2 out of 10. The user reviews are predominantly positive. One writer calls it "awesome and heart warming," and another asserts that "I have never felt so good after watching a movie."
How I felt about it. Albert Brooks has directed surprisingly few films. Mother (1997) received the most critical acclaim, including a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination (Debbie Reynolds), but Defending Your Life has the most user votes and highest user rating among his seven feature films. Brooks is perhaps best known as an actor, particularly memorable in Broadcast News (1987).
It is unclear why Defending Your Life seems so much more inspired than, for example, The Muse (1999), his movie about inspiration. And it isn't because Meryl Streep is his love interest. She doesn't actually have that many scenes.
Brooks has his charms as a self-effacing actor. He has been compared to Woody Allen, another writer-director of comedies who often cast himself in the lead. Brooks has fewer pretentions, but his career lacks a great movie, while Allen has made several. Brooks came closest here, in Defending Your Life, where the charm overcomes any dubious stretches, such as the stereotypical Japanese sushi servers, and various jokes at the expense of the elderly.
It is curious that Judgment City is fixated on overcoming fear. A life of self sacrifice impresses less than seizing rare opportunities. Is it better to advance Francisco Franco, to name a less ruthless dictator, than someone who seamlessly raised a family in anonymity?