Tim F. Martin—June 30, 2020✓ Verified purchase
I don’t know why I held off for so long seeing this movie. It felt like a movie that I should have seen, a classic, one of Anthony Hopkin’s and Brad Pitt’s best roles (and Claire Forlani’s, though this is I think the first film of hers that I have seen and I am not really familiar with the actress). I didn’t know what to expect and I wasn’t familiar with the film that inspired it, the 1934 film _Death Takes a Holiday_. It was wonderful. It is a long film, about 3 hours, and while the pacing is never dull or slow, it is stately at times shall we say (I was never bored though). Casting is fantastic, the three leads are just marvelous, and the story swept me away. The ending was wonderful and really stuck with me, really rather magical with the story, the acting, the lighting, setting, and music. The film is basically, as suggested by the other film title I mentioned, Death goes on a vacation. Death takes over the body of a young man who appears to have (maybe?) been killed in a car accident, the body belonging to a young man who flirted with and caught the eye and interest of Claire Forlani’s character, Susan Parrish, the two meeting in a coffee shop in New York before Susan goes to her work as a doctor at a hospital and the man goes to get involved in a car accident. Susan is the youngest daughter of a billionaire media tycoon, Bill Parrish (Hopkins’ character), the man who initially caught Death’s eye. He decides to take the body of the young man and join Bill, telling Bill he is staying an indefinite amount of time, Bill will be his guide, and he need not fear death while Death is with him. Death wants to not only take maybe a break from his job, but more importantly experience the life part of humanity, of inhabiting a body, interacting with people, trying foods, experience the life of a mortal, especially their daily lives. The movie could have been a comedy, of Bill trying ever crazier stunts knowing he couldn’t die, or Death going wild and hedonistically plunging into sensory experiences. Neither happens. Death is overwhelmed by the sensory experiences, from finding he now has a favorite food to when he meets Susan, who thinks he is still the man she met in the coffee shop. Bill, not going crazy at all, concentrates on doing right for his family and getting his affairs in order, most importantly making up with his eldest daughter, a woman who knows she is not his favorite (Allison Parrish, played by Marcia Gay Harden) and fighting to keep his company from being ripped from his grasp and reworked in a way he detests (there is a corporate villain in the film too). As Bill comes to find out what in life is the most valuable, Death comes to value life. There is a lot to like, from how Bill is changed by not only knowing he will soon die but also by Death’s personality and effects on his life to how Bill and living in a body changes Death to how Death and Susan interact…it’s a great love story, it’s a story of what is important in life, a love letter to life itself though that sounds pretentious when I write it. I enjoyed the corporate drama, the romance story, of Bill’s and Death’s philosophical discussions, of glimpses of life in the late 1990s, before 9/11, social media, and widespread cell phone use, I loved the fairytale feel of the ending of the film. Pitt can definitely act, Hopkins is always a joy to watch, and Claire Forlani was not only a phenomenal actress but a stunningly beautiful woman. It is marvelous. Read more
brainout—January 6, 2015✓ Verified purchase
EDIT: this EDIT concerns the special features on the Ultimate Edition, which I just got. (The original review is about the movie itself, below.) The casing for the DVD set is very annoying, worse than normal DVDs when you try to remove each DVD without scratching it. DVD quality is just like the movie shown publicly, or a tad crisper. Nice to watch it, uncut. Nice to be able to select scenes and rewatch, versus VHS. The Ultimate DVD edition (not blu-ray) has the following 'Bonus features' on Disc 1: Production Notes -- which is merely one screen -- Cast and Filmmakers, DVD Newsletter, Recommendations, DVD-ROM Features. These are extensive, designed to explain the backdrop of the movie. The 'Cast and Filmmakers' section is not live, but rather little screen explanations about the cast, stuff you can learn better in imdb. The DVD newsletter is a waste of time, as is Recommendations, other DVDs you might want to purchase (Scent of a Woman and 12 Monkeys) as a result of liking Meet Joe Black. The DVD-ROM features supposedly only play in your computer, but I've never had any luck activating those features in Win7, so if you have XP, maybe they will work, maybe not. The screen says you need Win95 or higher. I didn't try it on my Win98 machines. So the Disc 1 features are pretty much useless on a DVD player. Disc 2, by contrast, has the original movie which Meet Joe Black updates: 'Death Takes a Holiday', starring (a very young) Frederick March. It's in black and white, very 1930's, Alberto Casella's play put to film. You don't get any choice of scenes, it just plays when you click on it. Rather silly movie start, so Meet Joe Black is much more interesting. Even so, the only way you can get the Death Takes a Holiday, is to buy this DVD pair. But the older movie is well-made, technically. Plot is quite different, of course. Charming, in its own way. In that older film, Death assumes the body of a living person, having made the deal with the Duke of the household, the night of the Prince's arrival. Very theatrical, kinda hokey really. But the 'Spotlight on Location' is a live interview with Mr. Brest, the Director. Very interesting. So Disc 2 has these two 'features' which are worth the purchase. OH, for all you Greek drama addicts, you'll notice the 'yes' refrain that runs pan-movie, much like John's Gospel (in Greek) uses oude, ouden, outhen to signify 'no other' (thus proving inter alia, that YES the pericope adulterae is valid, right it sits in John 8 that begins and ends with a stoning) -- so this movie, uses 'Yes'. Cute. So nice, when real literary talent is incorporated into a movie script! Original review, follows below. First paragraph was updated, to tie to the above text. ============= The myth of Hades and Persephone is the underlying premise for Meet Joe Black, apparently keying off a line in the original film where the bride-to-be isn't quite ready to become a bride. The wistfulness of Persephone, see. I can't watch it often enough. Originally got it on VHS years ago, gonna get it on DVD, trying to decide which version. Looks like I'll get the Ultimate US DVD set? Of all the 20 formats you can buy here on Amazon, that one seems to have the most features, plus the original 'Death Takes a Holiday' on which this movie is peripherally based. But the real origin, is in Greek mythology, Hades and Persephone. Go read that first, and you'll get much more out of this A+++++ movie. Perfectly done in every respect, best film editing and camera work I can recall seeing in a film (okay, maybe Pearl Harbor and uncut Das Boot are as good). Seriously. If you pay really close attention upon repeated viewing, you'll notice the full-circle development of the characters, too (even the bit parts). Death and Parrish reverse roles, by the end. You got the puns, right (perish=Parrish=parish=par ish, given that 'ish' is Hebrew for 'man', and 'par' means 'by' in most languages)? Truly a work of art, this film. Nice touch, that they don't take sides about which afterlife definition you should believe, but only that there is one. Yeah, because that's the question of your life: what comes 'next'? Gotta know that, to orient to 'now'. Best of all, you realize that a superior being wouldn't necessarily despise you, and you wouldn't necessarily be intimidated by it/him/her. So the 'sting' of regarding an afterlife (which people tend to religify, as if 'god' had to be a religious person) -- is removed. Whew. For this, is a film you LIVE. Read more
