Albert Brooks navigates a secular afterlife in Defending Your Life

I sometimes find it perversely pleasing to hate a much-liked movie — one enshrined in The Criterion Collection, no less. Nice to know I am not yet a total victim of the monoculture!

I do respect one positive aspect of Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life that many reviewers single out: it is indeed refreshing to see a secular afterlife onscreen. Brooks’ Daniel violently dies in the most 80s way possible, and finds himself in an afterlife not encumbered by ancient superstition, ignorance, guilt, or shame. But I found its conception frustratingly vague and inconsistent: his life is measured by a narcissistic focus on career achievement and inner fulfillment, but Meryl Streep’s Julia is judged for her sacrifice for others. Should one strive to be a compassionate and selfless person like Julia, or should we listen to more self-help podcasts and try to go viral on LinkedIn? If we are judged by how fully we achieve our own goals, and how good we feel about ourselves, then does that mean all the narcissists, megalomaniacs, and psychopaths automatically get into paradise?

I was also perpetually distracted by Daniel’s repeated assertion that he got hit by a bus, when by his own careless distraction, he in fact caused the accident. Perhaps, if anyone arrives at the pearly gates, having committed manslaughter while alphabetizing their CD longbox collection, then they should automatically get kicked back downstairs to the basement.

Defending Your Life is also inexcusably dated in ways other than compact discs. 1991 was not a hundred years ago. The AIDS joke is as appalling now as it was then, and there are multiple instances of casual racism, usually at the expense of asians.

And if Defending Your Life is to do double duty as a morality play and romantic comedy, there’s an utter void at its heart. I did not find Albert Brooks or Rip Torn amusing or charming in the least, and it’s left to Meryl Streep to strenuously overact in a failed attempt to conjure some romantic chemistry. Every time she doubles over in laughter at one of Daniel’s unfunny quips, I just hated the movie that much more.