Defending Your Life (1991) on Netflix
PG19911h 52mComedyDramaFantasy
Daniel Miller, an advertising executive in Los Angeles, is killed in a car crash on his 39th birthday and wakes in Judgment City, where the dead are judged. There he meets Julia.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.2/1023,891 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
New arrivals in Judgment City, a way station for the recently deceased, appear before two judges who decide whether a person has conquered fear and can advance to a new phase of existence or must go back to Earth and live another life. Daniel Miller, an advertising executive from Los Angeles, is one of them. His defense attorney, Bob Diamond, explains that people on Earth barely use their brains and act largely out of fear; prosecutor Lena Foster argues the opposite case, and each draws on footage from selected days of Daniel's life. Between hearings, Daniel meets Julia, who lived a life of courage and generosity, and they spend time exploring the city together, including the Pavilion of Past Lives, where people can see their past lives.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Defending Your Life (1991)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Meryl Streep joined the cast after joking over dinner with Brooks, a friend of her Postcards from the Edge co-star Carrie Fisher, "Is there a part for me?"; Brooks took her seriously and rewrote the role of Julia specifically for her.
- Albert Brooks told Rolling Stone he received thousands of letters over the years from people whose relatives were dying, or who were dying themselves, saying the film's non-religious vision of the afterlife made them feel better.
- An early draft of the script included a different ending, in which Daniel is sent back as a horse, but Albert Brooks found himself gradually drawn into the love story aspect of the plot and rewrote it accordingly.
- Shirley MacLaine's cameo as the holographic host of the film's "Past Lives Pavilion" was a deliberate nod to her real, publicly known belief in reincarnation.
- The film was not a box office success, grossing about $16 million in the United States against a budget of over $20 million.
