Meet Joe Black

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use American English Template:Infobox film Meet Joe Black is a 1998 American romantic fantasy drama film directed and produced by Martin Brest, starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Claire Forlani. The screenplay was written by Bo Goldman, Kevin Wade, Ron Osborn, and Jeff Reno, and is loosely based on the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday, which is itself based on the 1929 play Death Takes a Holiday by Walter Ferris, which is in turn an English-language adaptation of the 1924 Italian play La morte in vacanza by Alberto Casella.

Celebrating his 65th birthday, businessman and devoted family man Bill Parrish is visited by Death, who wants to know what it is like to be human in return for giving Bill extra days of his life.

Plot

Media mogul Bill Parrish is contemplating a merger with another media giant. Meanwhile, his eldest daughter Allison is planning an elaborate 65th birthday party for him. His younger daughter Susan, a resident in internal medicine, has a relationship with Drew, a member of Bill's board. As Bill contemplates Susan's planned wedding to Drew and seeing she is not deeply in love, he suggests she wait to be swept off her feet.

After Bill's company helicopter lands at his office, he hears a voice that he tries to ignore. Arriving in his office, Bill has pains in his chest and hears the voice again, saying "the answer to your question is yes".

While eating breakfast near her hospital, Susan meets a young man and immediately forms a connection. She departs without getting his name. Unbeknownst to her, directly afterward, he is struck fatally by multiple cars.

That evening, Bill hears the voice again, which summons him to a room. Materializing, the voice identifies itself as "Death" and now inhabits the body of the young man Susan met at the restaurant. Death explains that Bill's impassioned speech to his daughter piqued his interest.

Given Bill's "competence, experience, and wisdom", Death says that for as long as Bill is his guide on Earth, he can postpone taking him. They both return to the dinner table and, under pressure to make an introduction, Bill spontaneously names the young man "Joe Black". Joe does not seem to know how to drink, eat, or use eating utensils and is fascinated by the small things everyone else takes for granted.

Drew secretly conspires to sell Parrish Communications, despite Bill's strong objections. Capitalizing on Bill's strange behavior and reliance on Joe, he convinces the board of directors to vote Bill out as chairman and to approve the merger. Intrigued by Joe's naivete, Susan realizes he is different from the young man she met in the restaurant. She falls in love with him and he with her. Later, Bill sees them kissing and angrily confronts Joe about his relationship with Susan. He then expresses his disapproval of the pairing to Susan who says she loves him and he suggests to her that Joe will not be around much longer.

At Susan's hospital, Joe interacts with a terminally ill woman, who wishes to die to escape her constant physical pain. She senses that Joe is part of her impending death. When Joe mentions that he loves Susan (whose care she is under), they discuss the meaning of life and she tells him the danger of meshing two worlds. When Joe asks if she is ready to go, she nods her head and dies.

As Bill's birthday arrives, Joe declares his intention to take Susan with him. Bill pleads with him to recognize the meaning of true love and to not steal Susan's life.

At the party, knowing his death is imminent, Bill says goodbye to his daughters. Susan tells Joe she has loved him since the day in the restaurant. He reveals he is not the man and it is heavily implied she understands what he is. They have a tearful goodbye as he tells her he loves her and thanks her for loving him. Quince, Allison's husband, apologizes to Bill for unwittingly undermining his position with the board, and Bill forgives him. He orders Quince to bring Drew to the party. Joe helps Bill regain control of his company, exposing Drew's underhanded business dealings to the board by claiming to be an agent of the Internal Revenue Service and threatening to put Drew in jail.

Susan and Bill later say goodbye as he makes inferences to passing and to live with no regrets. They share their final dance as fireworks begin, and on a hilltop above the party, Joe waits with tears in his eyes watching the fireworks. Bill heads up to him, and they share their thanks. Bill to Joe for showing Susan how she should be loved and Joe to Bill for being a good man. Susan watches Joe and her father cross a nearby bridge as Bill asks if he should be afraid and Joe responds "Not a man like you" and they descend out of sight on the other side.

Joe reappears alone, again the young man from the coffee shop, uninjured and not comprehending where he is or where he was while he was gone. Susan at first thinks it's Joe, but then realizes he's the young man she first met as they recall what they said as they parted the coffee shop and she expresses a wish he could have met her father. She descends hand-in-hand with him toward the party with fireworks bursting in the background.

Cast

• Brad Pitt as Death/"Joe Black"/Young Man in Coffee Shop
• Anthony Hopkins as Bill Parrish
• Claire Forlani as Susan Parrish
• Jake Weber as Drew
• Marcia Gay Harden as Allison Parrish
• Jeffrey Tambor as Quince, Allison's husband
• David S. Howard as Eddie Sloane
• Lois Kelly Miller as Jamaican Woman
• Marylouise Burke as Lillian
• June Squibb as Helen

Production

Filming

Most of William Parrish's country mansion scenes were shot at the Aldrich Mansion in Rhode Island.

The penthouse interiors and Parrish Communications offices were sets built at the 14th Regiment Armory in the South Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The coffee shop where Susan meets the young man is Broadway Restaurant, at 2664 Broadway and West 101st Street in New York's Manhattan. Principal photography commenced on 11 June 1997 and concluded on 12 November 1997.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The restaurant closed permanently in June 2023.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Versions

A two-hour version was made to show on television and airline flights, by cutting most of the plotline involving Bill Parrish's business. Since director Martin Brest derided this edit of his film and disowned it, the director's credit on this version used the Hollywood pseudonym Alan Smithee.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Release

The film premiered as the closing night film of the Tokyo International Film Festival on 8 November 1998.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Reception

Box office

Meet Joe Black opened in the United States and Canada on the weekend of 13–15 November 1998, and had a weekend gross of $15,017,995 ranking #3, behind The WaterboyTemplate:'s second weekend and the opening of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

While the film had a disappointing box office gross in the United States and Canada of $44,619,100, it fared much better internationally. Taking in an additional $98,321,000, the movie grossed a worldwide total of $142,940,100.<ref name="mojo">Template:Cite web</ref>

As Meet Joe Black was one of the few films showing the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, it was reported that Star Wars fans bought tickets just to see the trailer and then left right after it finished playing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Critical response

Meet Joe Black received mixed reviews from critics, with most complimenting the performances but criticizing the film's three-hour length, the slow pacing, and the screenplay.<ref name="Berardinelli">Template:Cite web</ref> Roger Ebert gave it three stars, but disliked the peripheral storylines and overly drawn-out ending. He concluded that despite its flaws, "there's so much that's fine in this movie".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that most of the characters were one-dimensional.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Hopkins received uniform praise for his performance, with Travers opining that Hopkins' Bill Parrish was the only fully realized character in the film; Mick LaSalle wrote that "Hopkins' acting is so emotionally full that the tiniest moments...ring with complexities of thought and feeling."<ref name="LaSalle">Template:Cite news</ref> Pitt, on the other hand, received a mixed response, with LaSalle calling his performance so bad "it hurts"<ref name="LaSalle"/> and James Berardinelli calling it "execrable".<ref name="Berardinelli"/> Thomas Newman's score received critical acclaim; it is generally considered one of his best works.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Meet Joe Black earned a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Remake or Sequel,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> being a takeoff of the film Death Takes a Holiday.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 48% approval rating on 52 reviews, with an average score of 5.60/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Meet Joe Black is pretty to look at and benefits from an agreeable cast, but that isn't enough to offset this dawdling drama's punishing three-hour runtime."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Metacritic, the film received a 43% score on 24 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore graded the film "A−" on a scale of A to F.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In retrospect, Brad Pitt views his performance in Meet Joe Black as a low point in his career, feeling he lacked direction at the time. He admitted to underperforming, saying, "I dogged it. I muffed it." He believes someone else could have done a better job and regrets taking the role, stating it was "the pinnacle of my…loss of direction and compass." While he praises Anthony Hopkins for his performance, he recognizes that he did not fully connect with the material.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

External links

• Template:IMDb title
• Template:Mojo title
• Template:Rotten Tomatoes