# Meet Joe Black (1998)

### reviewed by
Nathaniel R. Atcheson

    Meet Joe Black (1998)

Director: Martin Brest Cast: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Clair Forlani, Jake Weber, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeffrey Tambor Screenplay: Ron Osborn, Jeff Reno, Kevin Wade, Bo Goldman Producers: Martin Brest Runtime: 180 min. US Distribution: Universal Rated PG-13: some violence and sexuality, brief strong language

By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)

The most notable element of Meet Joe Black is its length. Director Martin Brest (Scent of a Woman) has made a long movie. It's a real problem when you're trying to make a moving, emotionally sweeping love story, and the most prominent feature of your film is its three-hour running time. This film will challenge the endurance of your buttox; it will also challenge your attention (audience members with ADD are warned to stay far away from this picture). Meet Joe Black is so long that it makes me wonder if anything was left out: it just might be the first film ever to be released without being edited first.

Of course, I'm just joking. But it is way too long. As we were walking out of the theater, my friend commented that it might take twenty minutes to read the script out loud. In fact, the characters don't say very much at all; when they do speak, they speak very slowly, and employ ten seconds of silence between every sentence. The pacing in Meet Joe Black is almost disastrous, especially in the last forty-five minutes, during which the film ends roughly six times and concludes with an inexplicable event and an overblown fireworks show.

And yet, Meet Joe Black is an exceptional picture for the first hour. The main character is Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins), and aging tycoon and father of two daughters, Susan (Clair Forlani) and Allison (Marcia Gay Harden). One night, he's confronted by Death (in the form of Brad Pitt). It's Bill's time to die, but Death would like to see the world first. So, Bill takes him to dinner with his family, introducing him as Joe Black. Susan, who recognizes Joe as a man she had met in a coffee shop that morning, is confused by his presence.

Well, the subplots take off from there. Susan is engaged to a man named Drew (Jake Weber), an executive of Bill's communications company. We all know that he's a cold and boring guy, and that Susan doesn't really love him. What isn't necessary is the subplot that involves Drew trying to get Bill fired (his reason for doing this is that he thinks Joe is a consultant and that Bill is running the business through him). The focus of the story, however, is the love affair between Joe and Susan, and what Bill does to keep it from happening.

The best thing in Meet Joe Black is Hopkins. He's such a fine actor, and brings class and dignity to every role he plays. As Bill Parrish, he adds a dimension that might not have been present in the script: we care about him, and we care about the relationships he has with his daughters. Even when the silly corporate takeover plot swings into full gear, we care about Bill and the way he deals with his loss. Meet Joe Black would have been much less of a film without Hopkins, and since it's already pretty messy, it's a good thing he's here to help.

But the other actors aren't lost. Pitt has been widely criticized for this role, but I enjoyed his work. When he first appears as death, he shows superb comic timing -- even his wooden execution of the dialogue is appropriate. Clair Forlani is quiet and somber, but so what? Susan is a quiet and somber character -- it doesn't make her any less interesting. Weber is one of the better slimeballs in recent history, and backup performances from Marcia Gay Harden and Jeffry Tambor (as Allison's husband) are both very nice.

Brest is a good director, and makes a few effective artistic choices. He's a big fan of the close-up, and it works in this picture -- it makes the characters more personable. I always got the feeling that Brest is passionate about his story; he cares about his characters, and he wants his film to be moving. I wasn't always taken with the love story, but it's effective on some levels -- the love scene, for instance, is touching. The first half of the film is also very funny -- the fish-out-of-water stuff with Death in the real world is great fun. But, overall, less would have been more: there are entire subplots that could have been taken out (such as the corporate takeover), and this would have helped the pacing immensely.

By the final hour, you might be wondering if the film will ever end. It does end -- in fact, it ends several times. There are so many revelations, so many scenes in which people say "good bye" to one another, so many finales that are supposed to be big and important, that the film really just seems bloated and unrestrained. Brest should have sliced at least an hour off of his movie; as it is, Meet Joe Black is an interesting movie that starts off funny and ends up self-important. A good editing job -- and I mean *really* good -- is all it would have taken to make Meet Joe Black a swift and wholly effective film.

    >From 0-10:  6

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               Nathaniel R. Atcheson

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