My Life (1993)

Directed by Bruce Joel Rubin. Starring Michael Keaton, Nicole Kidman, Bradley Whitford, Haing S. Ngor, Michael Constantine, Rebecca Schull, Queen Latifah, Mark Lowenthal, Romy Rosemont. [PG-13]

His wife (Kidman) pregnant with his first child, Keaton learns he only has a few months to live and decides to capture snapshots of his life and impart lessons and insights unto the unborn lad on home video while preparing for death. Cutesy tearjerker bites off more than it can chew, tackling far too many issues of reconciliation, salvation, acceptance, mysticism, etc. when it would have been better off focusing on more (fewer, that is) personally significant feelings. Aims to unearth nuggets of wisdom, but they’re primarily trite, even overwrought, and the movie has too many sappy or bewildering moments to overlook while appreciating the few things it does well. In order to serve the sentimentality on display, sanitizing uglier truths related to terminal disease and hospice care may have been the filmmakers’ choice more than an omission, but ignoring most of those details entirely feels like a cheat; added instead are scenes of comic relief, which would have been most welcome, except the jokes are as tired as poor Keaton becomes late in the film. As for Keaton, he and Kidman are both better than the material they’re handed and deliver performances worth watching (if you must watch it at all).

35/100