Remember the 1995 film starring Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep? It was a fun parody of what might happen in that intersticial space between death and the NEXT LIFE.
Brooks dies on his birthday when he inadvertantly hits a bus head-on; Streep hits her head on the patio of a swimming pool, falls in and drowns, a strange way to meet her Maker since she considers herself a good swimmer. They meet up and fall in love in Judgment City, the pit stop for reckoning with one's life by petitioning before two judges, with a prosecutor and a defense lawyer.
Brooks' "trial" ends in his having to go back to earth (another reincarnation) because the prosecutor proves he lived a life full of fear and missed opportunities. Streep ascends to something better (we never know what this is) because her life was filled with courageous, selfless acts. But in the end (happy of course because boy gets girl) Brooks risks everything for Streep when she's assigned to another "realm" without him and he almost gets hit by several buses pursuing her, determied to never let her go.
So is conquering fear at the heart of developing character and the subsequent ticket to redemption? Is Albert Brooks right?
About Me
- elly jackson
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- I am a Boston, Massachusetts-based Wedding Officiant and Celebrant; I also do free-lance writing, editing, teaching and coaching writers.
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