My Review of "Meet Joe Black"

Meet Joe Black is definitely not what I would consider a genre that I usually look forward to watching. It's a romantic drama that dives into the discussion of why life is precious and why we value it. Of course there are a few flaws here but I ended up liking this movie more than I had anticipated. Although, I do have some mixed impressions of the movie but we have to remember it's just a movie.

This movie starts off with a highly successful businessman named William Parish, or Bill as most call him. Bill suddenly has these panic attacks that something is coming for him and he's starting to hear voices. He feels that mortality is coming to an end for him.

He starts to realize that he has to cherish the things that he loves the most. So he has dinners and talks with his two daughters. Allison is his very ambitious daughter who is trying to organize a huge birthday extravaganza for Bill. She's putting so much work in but he doesn't really pay much mind to it.

Bill worries about his other daughter Susan. She's going out with one of his employees, Drew. Drew seems to be a successful man and nothing seems to be wrong with him but Susan doesn't seem to be all there when she's with him. He tells Susan that she must find someone that she is really in love with and not settle.

Soon after Susan meets this guy in a coffee shop and the two click. The two seem to be totally infatuated with each other before they part. That man however gets killed in a horrific car accident.

The voices that Bill has been hearing finally come to light. He's actually been talking with death. It so happens that death chose to use the body of the man that died in the horrific car accident mentioned earlier so he can walk among the living.

To make matters even more odd, Death wants Bill to show him the living world. He wants to discover the life of the living so Bill has to bring him everywhere with him at all times. So basically Bill introduces death to everyone as Joe Black.

It's a pretty crazy and creative idea and for the most part it works. Joe basically falls in love with Bill's daughter Susan but is it death that Susan has fallen in love with or is she infatuated with the person she met at the coffee shop? You'll find out if you see what happens in the movie.

I know this is a romantic drama and it definitely shows. They really milk the long emotional stares and the main romantic coupling are unrealistically good looking. It's like watching two supermodels falling in love with each other. There are a few moments when it almost looks more like a magazine photo shoot than a movie.

It's also a very quiet movie. Everyone is practically whispering throughout the show and when the orchestral music comes in it's super loud. I'm actually really glad I usually have subtitles playing when I watch these movies because it was definitely needed for this.

Now this movie isn't going to be for everyone. There's only so much you can watch two beautiful people staring at each other. This movie is about 3 hours. A lot of it is based on visuals. They have long shots of actors emotionally handling their situations like a soap opera but that's to be expected in this genre. I'm surprised that there wasn't too much dialogue in this movie considering romantic movies are usually based on the banter between people.

Still I like the fact that they talked about life questions. They want people to know that life is worth living because of the moments you share with people. It's even better when people value you. The misstep some people might see in this movie is that everyone in this movie are super rich and have no real problems. This might pose a problem especially in the times that we live nowadays. The romantic leads in this movie are practically super models.

These are pretty unrealistic goals that 99% of people in this world will never achieve. Still this is a movie and I guess it's a place to escape our daily lives. Why else do we watch shows that show us expensive cars, houses and vacations? It's a place to escape to pretend we're part of this but in a way i'm conflicted about this because it kind of perpetuates our capitalistic outlooks in life. We want to achieve these crazy life goals but it's even known that only 1% of the world will ever achieve these heights.

Overall, its an enjoyable movie. You kind of have to have your blinders on when your'e watching this movie though. I kind of don't like the fact that I allowed myself to watch this movie with blinders on but if you don't sometimes things will pass you by that you'll never experience. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It was enjoyable for one viewing but I don't think I could go back to watch this again.