ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE
US, 2022, 88 minutes, Colour.
Albert Brooks, Rob Reiner, Judd Apatow, James L. Brooks, Larry David, Jonah Hill, Conan O'Brien, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Steven Spielberg, Ben Stiller, Sharon Stone, Wanda Sykes.
Directed by Rob Reiner.
Albert Brooks has had a long career as a comic, stand-up comic, performer, film star, director. His life started with some irony because his family name was Einstein and his parents, his mother singer and dancer in the movies and on stage, and his father, Harry, a very popular comedian in film, radio and television, Parkyakarkus, decided to call their youngest child Albert, Albert Einstein. (To avoid any mixup, young Albert became Albert Brooks!).
For a great deal of the film and its complete framework, Albert Brooks sits in a restaurant with his boyhood friend and school companion, writer-director-actor, Rob Reiner, who directs this film and many clips of each man’s parents. They enjoy their conversation and their reminiscences, and so do we. (Except for an angry blogger who felt that this was all too chummy and not critical enough!)
In just under 90 minutes, through the conversation and through clips, we have Albert Brooks’s personal life, the stages of his career, his achievement, his marriage and family – with some testimonies from his wife and his two children. And, there are a great number of admirers as indicated in the list of contributors above. Not only are they in admiration of Brooks but they will remember and describe their first memories of his comedy and many of them indicating that it spurred them in their own careers – and this ranging from Larry David and Conan O’Brien to Jonah Hill, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller too great admiration from Steven Spielberg.
And, for movie buffs, all of his films are given the context, their initial impact, especially Real Life and Modern Romance, to his entertainments like Lost in America, his starring with Meryl Streep in Defending Your Life, inviting Sharon Stone to star with him in The Muse. Rob Reiner asks Brooks about his relationship with his mother and there are many scenes of Brooks’s film, Mother, Debbie Reynolds embodying on screen his actual mother.
And, it is surprising to find how many films Albert Brooks appeared in as an actor, starting with the role in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in 1976, an Oscar nomination for Broadcast News, and clips from a very interesting career range of performances. And his children reflecting on his voicing the father in Finding Nemo.
So, in a way, this is an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes. For those who know very little about Albert Brooks, anti-opener. For those familiar with him, very entertaining and interesting.
