Awe Inspiring

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2004)

Meet Joe Black is a beautiful in just about every way. It's 3 hours long and if you let the beauty of this film take hold of you, you'll not feel as if any time has gone by at all.
It's a film about "death" and it is rich in everything that make a movie a sentimental favorite in the "It's a Wonderful Life" vein. In short, if you do not fall under the spell of this film, you are a hopeless cynic without a whit of heart!
What's beautiful about Meet Joe Black? First of all, it's directed with such love and and an eye for detail that you can't take your eyes off it. The art direction, cinematography, musical score and staging are blended into an artistic triumph. The music by Thomas Newman is especially brilliant; haunting and sinuous.
The cast is so good, it's hard to believe the movie was received so disparagingly by critics. Brad Pitt's impersonation of the devil inhabiting a young man's body is pitch perfect in every way. He gets everything right; a child like innocence of first experiences. Anthony Hopkins has never been better. Claire Forlani says more with facial expression than a thousand lines. Her love scenes with Pitt are unique. They're not only erotic, but deep and soulful in all the right ways. Marcia Gay Harden is perfect and Jeffrey Tambor as Quince gives a delectable portrait of a character we've all met and known from time to time.
This is a "feel good" movie, so it was automatically dismissed by half the critics out there. It not only makes you feel good about life and death, but it makes you contemplate a lot of the important, simple issues of our existence.
A classic in every way that will be loved by the lucky souls who really understand it.